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Another Cheap Soup

A hearty beef soup with barley, parsley, onions, and optional vegetables.

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

four quarts of soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the beef, barley, parsley, onions, and salt in a large pot.

  2. Add enough water to make four quarts of soup.

  3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for several hours.

  4. If desired, add potatoes or other vegetables during the last hour of cooking.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Barley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  5. Beef + barleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Shin of beef or ox-cheek
Provides meat that becomes tender and flavourful during long, slow simmering.
Barley
Thickens the broth slightly as its starch releases during simmering and adds chewy texture.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth to the broth as they soften and release their flavour.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after boiling. A rolling boil toughens meat proteins and can make the broth cloudy, so the heat should be lowered to a gentle simmer for the several hours needed to tenderise the beef.

Swap the potato

The recipe marks potato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, barley, parsley, onion):

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Turnipfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, barley, parsley, onion. 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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