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Shin-of-beef Soup

A clear beef shin soup made with bones, vegetables, and sago.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Shin-of-beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat from the bones into small pieces and break up the bones to remove the marrow.

Make the soup

  1. Heat the dripping in a saucepan and fry the meat and bones until browned.

  2. Pour off the dripping, add the cold water and salt, and bring to a boil.

  3. Skim the surface carefully, then add the peeled and quartered vegetables.

  4. Simmer gently for four hours, adding water if it boils away.

Finish

  1. Strain the soup and let it cool, then skim off the fat.

  2. Reheat the soup, stir in the sago, and cook until clear.

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. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Skin of beef
Breaks down during long simmering to give the soup body and a rich, gelatinous mouthfeel.
Dripping
Fat that browns the meat and bones, adding roasted flavour to the stock.
Sago
Starch that thickens the soup slightly as it cooks and turns it clear.

The step that matters

Frying the meat and bones until browned. Browning drives Maillard reactions that create deeper, roasted flavour. Pale frying yields a flatter, less savoury stock.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Beetrootfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, 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.

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