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Ox-Rump Soup

A beef soup made with a rump of ox, water, mace, parsley, and crusted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,032 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Ox-Rump Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the rump of beef in a pot with enough water to cover it.

  2. Skim off any scum that rises to the surface.

  3. Add mace, parsley, and a crust of bread.

  4. Boil until the beef is tender.

Serve

  1. Cut toasted bread into pieces and place in a tureen.

  2. Add the cooked meat and pour the broth over it.

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. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Mace + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Parsley + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Beef + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,866 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Mace + breadtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,005 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Rump of beef
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and flavourful as it simmers slowly in the broth.
Toasted bread
Soaks up the broth and gives the soup a soft, absorbent body when served.
Crust of bread
Adds a little body and helps thicken the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum. Skimming foam that rises as the water heats removes impurities and proteins, keeping the broth clearer and cleaner in flavour.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, parsley, bread):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Pepperfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, parsley, 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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