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Beef Soup

A hearty beef soup with vegetables and toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the beef in a large pot with cold water and a little salt.

  2. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce to a gentle simmer.

  3. Skim off any fat that rises to the surface.

  4. After 6 hours, add the carrots, turnips, leeks, celery, parsley, and cloves.

  5. Grate the red carrot and sprinkle it on top.

  6. Continue to simmer until ready to serve.

Serve

  1. In a tureen, place the toasted bread and pour the soup over it, straining it through a 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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean fresh beef
Provides the meat flavour that gives the broth its body as it simmers.
Carrots
Add sweetness and colour to the broth as they soften during the long simmer.
Turnips
Contribute a mild, slightly sweet vegetable flavour to the broth.
Leeks
Add a mild onion-like aroma and sweetness to the broth.
Toasted bread
Soaks up broth at serving, giving the soup a soft, substantial texture.

The step that matters

Skim off any fat that rises to the surface. Fat that is left in the pot can make the broth greasy and cloudy, so removing it as it rises keeps the soup clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, leek, celery, parsley, bread. 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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