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Sad Beef

A hearty beef soup with cabbage, split peas, and optional potatoes, milk, bread, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sad Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beef

  1. Combine the beef and cold water in a large pot.

  2. Boil gently for three hours.

Add the cabbage

  1. Clean and cut the cabbages into four pieces.

  2. Add the cabbages to the pot with the meat.

  3. Drain the cabbage and arrange it around the beef on a serving dish.

Finish the soup

  1. Leave the broth on the heat.

  2. Add the split peas, pepper, and brown sugar.

  3. Boil slowly until done.

  4. Add more salt and pepper if needed.

  5. If too salty, add more water and potatoes.

  6. Optionally add skim milk and toasted bread to the soup when serving.

  7. Optionally mix flour with water to thicken.

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. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Peas + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,016 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together275 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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

Beef
Long, gentle simmering breaks down connective tissue, making the meat tender and enriching the broth.
Cabbages
Softens during simmering and adds a mild, sweet vegetable flavour to the broth.
Split peas
Their starch breaks down as they cook, thickening the broth and giving it body.
Brown sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that balances the salt and savoury beef flavour.

The step that matters

Boil gently for three hours. A gentle simmer lets the beef's connective tissue soften slowly. A hard, rapid boil tightens the muscle fibres and can leave the meat tough and the broth cloudy.

Swap the potato

The recipe marks potato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, cabbage, peas, pepper, sugar, milk, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Leekfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, cabbage, peas, pepper, sugar, milk, bread. 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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