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Clear Soup a LA Chiffonade

A clear beef-based soup with vegetables, herbs, and chiffonade garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Clear Soup a LA Chiffonade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and slice the vegetables.

  2. Cut the meat into small pieces and mince if possible.

  3. Chop the bones and add them to a large saucepan with the meat.

  4. Add the vegetables, herbs, and seasoning.

Simmer

  1. Pour in 2 quarts of cold water and bring to a boil.

  2. Skim off the scum as it rises.

  3. Add ½ cup of cold water to help the scum rise.

  4. Once boiling, add 1 teaspoon of salt and let it simmer gently for 6 hours.

Strain and clarify

  1. Strain through a fine sieve and allow to cool.

  2. Skim off all fat when cold and clarify the soup.

  3. Garnish with blanched rounds of lettuce and tarragon.

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Gravy beef
Gives the broth its meaty flavor and body as it simmers.
Rabbit or chicken bones
Release gelatin and savory flavor into the broth during long simmering.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the finished broth.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim off the scum as it rises. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities. Removing it early keeps the soup clear and clean-tasting, which is the whole point of a clear soup.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, rabbit, carrot, turnip, thyme, parsley, 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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