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Shin of Beef Soup

A hearty soup made from shin of beef, carrots, turnips, celery, and herbs, simmered for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Shin of Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the bone of the shin of beef into three pieces.

  2. Place the beef and bones in a large pot and cover with cold water.

  3. Simmer for about 1 hour.

Make the soup

  1. Add the carrots, turnips, celery, allspice, cloves, savory, thyme, and parsley.

  2. Continue simmering for 2 to 3 hours.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup thick with vegetables, and the meat separately with parsley and butter.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Allspice + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Shin of beef
Provides meat and collagen that break down during long simmering to enrich the broth.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the broth as they soften during simmering.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and soft texture to the finished soup.
Celery
Adds savory, aromatic flavor to the broth as it cooks.

The step that matters

Simmering the beef. Cover the beef with cold water and simmer gently rather than boiling hard. Gentle heat keeps the broth clear and lets the connective tissue in the shin soften slowly, so the meat becomes tender and the soup gains body.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, celery, allspice, thyme, parsley. 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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