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Brown Soup

A hearty beef soup with vegetables, simmered for hours and thickened with browned flour.

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

Why it works: Celery and carrot 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 ↓

Brown Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a pot, heat some dripping.

  2. Cut the meat and onions, leaving the onion skins on for color.

  3. Dredge the meat with flour, pepper, and salt.

  4. Fry the dredged meat with the onions until browned.

  5. Pour off excess dripping.

Make the soup

  1. Add the chopped vegetables and herbs.

  2. Cover with 4 cups of cold water.

  3. Bring to a boil, adding more water if needed.

  4. Simmer for 3 hours.

  5. Strain the soup.

  6. Thicken with a little browned flour.

  7. Serve hot.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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
Provides the main flavor and body of the soup as it simmers.
Flour
Coats the meat so it browns, and later thickens the soup.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth, and their skins contribute color to the broth.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavor to the simmering broth.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body to the broth as it cooks.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and body to the broth as it cooks.

The step that matters

Fry the dredged meat with the onions until browned. Browning through the Maillard reaction builds deep, roasted flavor and color in the broth. Pale meat yields a flatter, less colorful soup, so the meat should be well browned before liquid is added.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, meat, celery, flour, pepper, turnip, carrot. 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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