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Clear Soup

A clear broth made from beef or veal tails, vegetables, and seasonings, clarified with egg whites and shells.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Clear Soup

Why it works: Sherry and arrowroot work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 129 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Clear Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Cut the tails into short lengths and cover with cold water.

  2. Add a little salt, bring to a boil, and strain.

  3. Return the stock to the saucepan with vegetables, flavourings, and seasonings.

  4. Simmer gently for four hours, keeping the saucepan covered.

  5. Strain the stock, set the meat aside, and remove the fat once the stock is cold.

Clarify and serve

  1. Clarify the stock with the egg whites and shells, then strain again.

  2. Reheat the clarified stock and serve garnished with pieces of the tail and fancy‑cut carrot and turnip.

  3. If desired, add a glass of sherry and a tablespoon of arrowroot mixed with a little stock for a slightly thickened soup.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Sherry + arrowroottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together129 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  2. Beef + arrowroottop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together155 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Beef + sherrytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together871 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Egg + sherrytop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Egg + arrowroottop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Tails (beef or veal)
Give the stock its meaty body and rich flavour as they simmer.
Egg whites
Bind to fine particles and rise to collect them, clearing the stock.
Arrowroot
Thickens the soup lightly when mixed with stock and stirred in.

The step that matters

Clarifying the stock with egg whites. Egg whites must be whisked into cold stock and the stock brought to a gentle simmer without stirring. As the whites coagulate they trap cloudy particles, so vigorous boiling or stirring breaks the raft and leaves the soup cloudy.

Swap the arrowroot

The recipe marks arrowroot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, egg, sherry):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, egg, sherry. 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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