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Soup

Shin of Beef Soup

A slow-cooked soup of beef legs and neat's feet with carrots, onions, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Shin of Beef Soup

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut off the gristly part of the beef legs and neat's feet, leaving some veiny parts.

  2. Scald the meat well and place it in a stew pan covered with water.

Cook

  1. Add the carrots and onions.

  2. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 10 to 12 hours until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the vegetables and fat, then season with salt and pepper.

  2. Serve in a tureen.

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 + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 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

Beef legs
Provide collagen-rich connective tissue that breaks down during long cooking to give body and a gelatinous texture to the broth.
Neat's feet
Add gelatin and richness, thickening the broth and giving it a silky mouthfeel as they cook slowly.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and aromatic flavour to the broth as they soften during the long cooking.
Onions
Add savoury depth and aroma to the broth as they cook down over many hours.

The step that matters

Scalding the meat. Scalding briefly in hot water coagulates surface proteins and releases impurities, so the broth stays clearer and cleaner-tasting. Skipping it can leave a cloudy, scummy soup.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, 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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