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Beef Soup

A hearty beef soup made with leg or shin beef, celery, carrots, onions, turnips, tomatoes, sweet herbs, water, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot 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 ↓

Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Cut the beef into two or three pieces and place them in a large pot with the water and salt.

  2. Simmer gently, removing any scum that rises to the surface.

  3. Cook for about 4 hours.

Add vegetables and finish

  1. Add the chopped celery, turnips, and carrots, along with the sliced and fried onions and the sweet herbs tied in muslin.

  2. Remove the meat a couple of hours before serving.

  3. Strain the soup through a fine sieve.

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 + carrottop 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. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Slow simmering breaks down its connective tissue, enriching the broth with body and flavor.
Onions
Frying the sliced onions before adding them browns their sugars, deepening the soup's savory flavor.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savory flavor to the broth as it cooks.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and color to the broth as they cook.
Turnips
Soften during simmering and add a mild, earthy sweetness to the soup.

The step that matters

Removing the scum while simmering. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the beef heats. Skimming it keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting. Simmering gently rather than boiling also prevents cloudiness.

Swap the tomato

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

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

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