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Brown Soup

A hearty soup made from beef shin, vegetables, and macaroni, simmered slowly and served with force meat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Brown Soup

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Brown Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Boil the beef shin all day until it becomes jelly-like when cold.

  2. Strain and refrigerate overnight.

Make the soup base

  1. In the same pan, melt the butter and brown the onion.

  2. Add the brown flour, carrots, turnips, celery, thyme, parsley, allspice, mace, and salt.

  3. Cook slowly all day.

  4. Once the vegetables are thoroughly cooked, press them through a strainer to extract all the substance.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the macaroni, sherry wine, and force meat balls.

  2. Cook until the macaroni is tender, then serve.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Celery + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef shin
Gives the stock body and a jelly-like texture when chilled, from collagen released during long boiling.
Butter
Carries the flavour of the onion and adds richness as the base is browned.
Brown flour
Thickens the soup and adds a toasted, browned colour and flavour.
Onion
Browned in butter to build sweetness and savoury depth in the base.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body once cooked down and pressed through the strainer.
Macaroni
Adds starch and bulk, softening in the soup until tender.

The step that matters

Pressing the cooked vegetables through a strainer. Pressing must follow thorough cooking so the vegetables break down fully and release their substance into the liquid. Under-cooked vegetables stay firm and will not pass through, leaving the soup thin and gritty.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, flour, carrot, turnip, celery, thyme):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, flour, carrot, turnip, celery, thyme. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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