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Soup

Plain Soup

A simple beef and vegetable soup made with beef, veal bone, carrots, celery, onion, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Plain Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Cover the beef and veal bone with cold water in a pot.

  2. Boil until the liquid reduces by half.

  3. Skim off any fat from the surface.

Season and finish

  1. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  2. Add the carrot, celery, and onion (cut in half).

  3. Simmer until the vegetables are tender.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

Soup beef
Gives the broth its main meaty flavor and body as it cooks down.
Veal bone
Adds gelatin and depth, giving the broth a richer mouthfeel.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and aroma to the broth.
Celery
Contributes savory, aromatic flavor to the broth.
Onion
Adds savory depth and aroma as it softens in the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming off the fat. Fat that is not skimmed off the surface stays in the broth and makes it greasy and cloudy. Skimming early, while the liquid is still reducing, keeps the finished soup clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Turnipfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, pepper, carrot, 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.

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