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 ↓
Beef Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the stock
Simmer the soup bone in a large kettle of water for 6 to 8 hours.
Remove the meat and strain the liquid.
Set the liquid aside until the next morning and remove the fat that has risen.
Finish the soup
At 10 o'clock, bring the stock to a boil.
Add the sliced onions, diced carrots, whole potatoes, and whole peppercorns.
Just before serving, add the tomato ketchup or strained tomatoes.
Cream the flour with the butter and stir it in before serving.
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.
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Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,023 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,107 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
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Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,798 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,606 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Soup bone
- Simmered for hours to release flavor and body into the stock.
- Onions
- Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften in the broth.
- Potatoes
- Absorb the broth and thicken the soup as they cook through.
- Tomato ketchup or strained tomatoes
- Adds acidity and savory sweetness that rounds out the broth.
- Flour
- Thickens the soup when creamed with butter and stirred in.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness to the soup, helping the flour blend smoothly.
The step that matters
Creaming the flour with the butter before stirring it in. Flour stirred in dry clumps into lumps that never fully dissolve. Blending it with fat first coats the particles so they disperse evenly in the hot liquid and thicken it smoothly.
Swap the tomato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot, potato, flour, butter):
- Leekfits better
- Chivefits better
- Parsnipfits better
- Tomatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, potato, flour, butter. 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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