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Economical Soup

A soup made with bones, meat, onions, potatoes, and seasonings, covered with a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Economical Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place all the bones and pieces of meat in a pot and cover with water.

  2. Add the sliced onions and diced potatoes, then season with salt and pepper.

Crust and cook

  1. Make a short crust or a plain raised crust to cover the meat.

  2. Cut a slit in the crust for steam to escape.

  3. Cook until the crust is done.

Serve

  1. Skim off any fat that rises to the surface to avoid a greasy soup.

  2. Serve the soup in a deep dish.

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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Bones and pieces of meat
Give the soup its main flavour and body as they simmer in the water.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they soften into the broth.
Potatoes
Break down slightly during cooking, adding body and thickening the soup.

The step that matters

Skimming off the fat. Fat from the meat rises to the surface as the soup cooks. Removing it before serving keeps the broth clean-tasting and avoids a greasy mouthfeel.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, potato, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, potato, 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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