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Beef-soup

A hearty beef soup with rice, onions, potatoes, eggs, milk, and flour.

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 soup

  1. Combine the beef, rice, and enough water to cover in a pot.

  2. Stew for 4 hours over medium heat.

  3. One hour before it is done, add the onions, potatoes, salt, and pepper.

Add the dumplings and serve

  1. Whisk together the eggs, milk, and flour in a bowl.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the soup.

  3. Alternatively, break sliced bread into the tureen 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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main flavour and meaty body of the soup as it stews.
Rice
Thickens the broth slightly as its starch releases during long simmering.
Potatoes
Soften during cooking and add starch that gives the soup body.
Eggs
Set when dropped into the hot soup, binding the flour and milk into dumplings.
Flour
Combines with the eggs and milk to form a batter that holds its shape in the broth.

The step that matters

Drop the egg mixture into the soup. The batter must go into gently simmering soup as spoonfuls. Boiling too hard can break the dumplings apart, while adding it too early can leave them dense or overcooked.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, rice, potato, pepper, egg, milk, flour):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, rice, potato, pepper, egg, milk, flour. 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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