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Family Soup

A hearty beef soup with tongue, vegetables, and rice, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 590 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Family Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large pot.

  2. Simmer for 4 hours, or until the flavors are extracted from the meat.

  3. Strain the soup and let it cool.

  4. Skim off the fat when ready to serve.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the soft parts of the tongue and chopped fresh carrot, turnip, and onion.

  2. Cook until the vegetables are tender and serve with toasted bread.

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. Turnip + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef shin
Releases flavor and gelatin into the broth during long simmering, giving body to the soup.
Cold tongue remains
Adds rich, meaty flavor to the broth and tender pieces to the finished soup.
Rice
Thickens the broth slightly as its starch releases during cooking.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth as they cook down.

The step that matters

Skimming the fat. Fat that is not removed after cooling and before serving can leave the soup greasy and coat the mouth. Skimming when the broth is chilled lets the fat solidify on top so it lifts off cleanly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, meat, turnip, carrot, parsnip, celery, rice. 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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