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Soup

Another Cheap Soup

A hearty soup made with ox cheek, potatoes, onions, salt, pepper, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion 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 ↓

Another Cheap Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, combine the ox-cheek, potatoes, onions, salt, and pepper.

  2. Add 90 pints of water and bring to a boil.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer until the soup is reduced to 60 pints.

  4. Serve 1 pint of soup with a small piece of meat for a hearty meal.

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. Potato + oniontop 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).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox-cheek
Collagen in the connective tissue slowly breaks down into gelatin, giving tender meat and a fuller body.
Potatoes
Their starch leaches into the simmering liquid, thickening the soup and adding body.
Onions
They soften and release sweetness and aromatic compounds into the broth.

The step that matters

Simmering down to 60 pints. A gentle simmer lets the collagen in the ox-cheek break down slowly into gelatin. A hard boil toughens the meat and can cloud the broth, while reducing too far concentrates the soup and changes its balance.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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