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Economical Soup

A hearty soup made with ox cheek or bony beef, rice, potatoes, sweet herbs, and optional vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 851 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Economical Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the ox-cheek or bony beef in a large pot and cover with water.

  2. Boil gently for several hours until the water is gelatinous.

Add the rest and finish

  1. Add the rice, sweet herbs, potatoes, and any other vegetables you desire.

  2. Season with salt to taste and simmer until the rice and vegetables are cooked.

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. Rice + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together851 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Beef + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox-cheek or bony beef
Collagen in the bones and connective tissue breaks down into gelatin, giving the broth body.
Rice
Absorbs liquid and softens as it simmers, thickening the soup and adding starch.
Potatoes
Release starch as they cook, adding body and a soft, filling texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Boil gently for several hours. A vigorous boil can toughen meat fibres and cloud the broth, while slow simmering lets collagen convert to gelatin, giving a clear, rich liquid.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, rice):

  1. Tomatofits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Onionfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, rice. 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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