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Beef Soup

A hearty soup made with beef bone stock, onions, carrots, potatoes, peppercorns, and tomato ketchup or strained tomatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Simmer the soup bone in a large kettle of water for 6 to 8 hours.

  2. Remove the meat and strain the liquid.

  3. Set the liquid aside until the next morning and remove the fat that has risen.

Finish the soup

  1. At 10 o'clock, bring the stock to a boil.

  2. Add the sliced onions, diced carrots, diced potatoes, and whole peppercorns.

  3. Just before serving, add the tomato ketchup or strained tomatoes.

  4. Cream the flour with the butter and stir it in just before serving.

  5. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 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

Soup bone
Releases flavor and body into the water during long, slow simmering.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they cook into the broth.
Potatoes
Soften as they cook and thicken the soup slightly with their starch.
Carrots
Add sweetness and color, and hold their shape during simmering.
Flour
Creamed with butter and stirred in, it thickens the soup body.
Tomato ketchup or strained tomatoes
Add acidity, sweetness and color to the broth.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour and butter just before serving. Flour added to hot liquid can clump, so creaming it with butter first and stirring it in near the end lets it disperse and thicken smoothly without lumps.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot, potato, flour, butter, pepper):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, potato, flour, butter, 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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