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Clear Macaroni Soup

A clear beef broth with macaroni, carrots, onions, celery, bay leaf, allspice, and soy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Clear Macaroni Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Cut the carrots, onions, and celery into pieces.

  2. Place the cut vegetables in the bottom of a large pot.

  3. Add the beef, cut into small pieces, on top of the vegetables.

  4. Sprinkle the beef with salt.

  5. Cook the soup on the stove over high heat for 1 hour, being careful not to burn it.

Simmer and strain

  1. Add 3 quarts of cold water.

  2. Remove any fat that rises to the surface.

  3. Bring the soup to a boil.

  4. Skim off any scum.

  5. Add soy sauce, bay leaf, and allspice.

  6. Let the soup simmer for 3 hours.

  7. Strain the soup through a cloth.

  8. Use a piece of paper to remove any remaining fat from the surface of the soup.

Add macaroni and serve

  1. Boil the macaroni in plenty of water until tender.

  2. Cut the cooked macaroni into small pieces.

  3. Add the macaroni to the soup.

  4. Bring the soup to a boil.

  5. 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.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Carrot + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the meat flavor and rich body of the broth as it cooks down.
Onions
Release sweetness and aromatic depth into the broth during long cooking.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and aroma to the broth.
Celery
Contributes savory, aromatic flavor to the broth.
Macaroni
Adds starch and bulk, giving the soup a substantial bite.

The step that matters

Skimming fat and scum before simmering. Fat and scum rising to the surface can make the broth greasy and cloudy. Removing them as they form, then straining, keeps the soup clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, carrot, celery, pepper, sauce):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, carrot, celery, pepper, sauce. 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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