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An Economical Soup

A simple beef bone broth with cabbage, turnips, and potatoes, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 897 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

An Economical Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Wash the soup bone and place it in a kettle with enough cold water for soup.

  2. Bring to a boil, skim thoroughly, and then boil slowly for 3 to 6 hours.

Add the vegetables

  1. One hour before serving, add the cabbage and sprinkle with salt.

  2. After 15 minutes, add the turnips.

  3. After another 15 minutes, add the potatoes.

  4. When done, remove the vegetables and meat and keep warm.

Finish and serve

  1. If the soup is too thin, add boiling water and stir in a little flour mixed with water to thicken.

  2. Boil thoroughly, season with salt and pepper, and serve immediately.

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. Cabbage + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  3. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Turnip + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Soup bone
Releases flavor and gelatin into the water as it simmers slowly over hours.
Cabbage
Adds sweet, mild body and absorbs savory broth flavor during the long simmer.
Turnips
Soften during simmering and add a slightly sweet, earthy flavor to the broth.
Potatoes
Soften as they cook and release starch that gives the broth more body.
Flour
Thickens the broth when mixed with water and stirred in.

The step that matters

Skim thoroughly after the first boil. Foam that rises at the start contains coagulated proteins and impurities; removing it keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, cabbage, turnip, flour, pepper):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, cabbage, turnip, flour, pepper. 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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