Skip to main content
Main

Shin-oe-beef Soup

A hearty beef bone soup made with shin, vegetables, and sago.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Shin-oe-beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the meat from the bones into small pieces.

  2. Break up the bones and remove the marrow.

Brown and start the soup

  1. Heat the dripping in a saucepan until very hot.

  2. Fry the meat and bones until browned.

  3. Pour off the dripping, add the water and salt, and bring to a boil.

  4. Skim the surface carefully.

Simmer and serve

  1. Add the peeled and quartered vegetables.

  2. Simmer gently for four hours, adding water if it boils away.

  3. Strain the soup before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Shin of beef
Provides rich flavour and gelatinous body as it simmers slowly with the bones.
Dripping
Fat for frying the meat and bones, building browned, savoury flavour.
Sago
Thickens the soup lightly as its starch swells during cooking.

The step that matters

Frying the meat and bones until browned. Browning through the Maillard reaction builds deep, savoury flavour that carries into the broth. Pale meat gives a flatter, blander soup, so the pieces need enough hot fat and room to colour rather than steam.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Beetrootfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, 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.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipes