Skip to main content
Main

Macaroni Soup

A hearty beef broth with macaroni, vegetables, and tomato catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Macaroni Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a large pot, combine the beef and water with the onions, carrot, turnip, and celery.

  2. Boil slowly for 3 to 4 hours until reduced to about 2 quarts of liquid.

  3. Let the soup cool, then remove the grease without disturbing the sediment.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour the clear liquid back into the pot half an hour before serving.

  2. Add salt to taste, macaroni, and tomato catsup.

  3. Bring to a boil and serve in cups.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Simmered for hours to release flavor and body into the broth.
Macaroni
Adds starch and bulk, absorbing some broth and giving the soup a heartier texture.
Tomato catsup
Adds sweetness and acidity, rounding out the broth's savory flavor.

The step that matters

Boil slowly and skim the grease. A slow simmer keeps the broth clear, while removing the cooled fat lets the liquid stay light and prevents a greasy mouthfeel. Disturbing the sediment would cloud the soup.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, carrot, turnip, celery. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipes