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Soup

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A soup made from beef tea, tapioca, and egg yolks, seasoned with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and tea work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 417 recipes. Both carry 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan, which smells thiamin, meat. The science ↓

Invalid Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the tapioca in a little water until clear.

  2. Strain it and add to the warm beef tea.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the egg yolks and cook slightly.

  2. Season to taste and serve.

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. Beef + teatop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan (thiamin, meat).

  2. Beef + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Tea + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together821 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef tea
Forms the savory liquid base of the soup and carries its flavor.
Tapioca or sago
Starch that swells and thickens the broth as it turns clear when boiled.
Egg yolks
Proteins set gently in the warm broth, adding body and richness.

The step that matters

Cook the egg yolks slightly. Egg yolks thicken when gently heated but scramble and curdle if the soup boils. Keep the heat low and stir steadily once they go in.

“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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