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Beef Soup

A hearty beef soup with potatoes, cabbage, corn, onions, celery, tomatoes, and optional force‑meat and egg balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the cracked joints of beef in a pot and cover with water.

  2. Bring to a boil and skim the surface.

  3. Reduce heat and let simmer slowly until the meat is thoroughly cooked, keeping the pot covered.

  4. Once cooled, remove the fat that hardens on top of the soup.

Add the vegetables

  1. Peel, wash, and slice the potatoes, then add them to the soup.

  2. Shred the cabbage and add it to the pot along with the soaked corn, onions, celery, and tomatoes if desired.

  3. Simmer the soup slowly, ensuring it does not burn.

  4. Strain the soup if preferred, then serve.

Make the force-meat and egg balls

  1. For force-meat balls, mix chopped beef with egg, butter, bread-crumbs, salt, and pepper, moisten with stewed meat water, form into balls, and fry until brown.

  2. For egg-balls, mash boiled egg yolks, mix with raw yolk and flour, season, form into balls, and drop into the soup just before serving.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  4. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  5. Potato + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cracked joints of beef
Provides the meat and rich flavour that the broth is built on.
Potatoes
Break down slightly as they cook, thickening the soup and adding body.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a mild, sweet vegetable flavour as it simmers.
Chopped beef
Binds with egg and crumbs to form tender, browned force-meat balls.
Bread-crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the force-meat balls hold their shape.
Raw egg yolk
Binds the egg-balls together and adds richness.

The step that matters

Fry the force-meat balls until brown. Browning through frying creates savoury flavour, and the balls must be formed firmly enough to hold together in the pot.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, potato, cabbage, corn, onion, celery, parsley):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, cabbage, corn, onion, celery, parsley. 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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