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Portable Soup

A beef broth reduced to a thick syrup, seasoned with black pepper, served in small pots or shallow dishes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Portable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer the meat

  1. Place the meat in a digester or common stew-pot.

  2. Cover the meat with cold liquor and bring to a slow boil for at least 1 hour.

  3. Skim off the scum.

  4. Add a little cold water occasionally and do not add salt.

  5. Once no more scum rises, cover the pot and boil for 8 to 10 hours.

Strain and cool

  1. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve into a stone pan.

  2. Let it cool quickly.

  3. The next day, remove any fat from the top and transfer the gravy to a well-tinned copper stew-pan, ensuring no sediment is included.

Reduce to a jelly

  1. Add 2 drachms of whole black pepper and boil briskly with the lid off over high heat, skimming off any scum that forms.

  2. When thickened and reduced to about 1 quart, transfer to a smaller stew-pan and simmer until it reaches a thick syrup consistency.

  3. Test for doneness by placing a few drops on a cold spoon; if it sets into a stiff jelly, it is ready. If not, boil a little longer.

  4. Pour into small pots with lids or onto a flat dish to a depth of ¼ inch.

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 + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Beef + muttontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Meat + muttontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

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

  5. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef shin
Its connective tissue releases gelatin during long simmering, giving the finished soup its jelly-like set.
Meat trimmings
Add extra collagen and meaty flavour to the stock, deepening body and savour.
Liquor from boiled leg of mutton or knuckle of veal
Forms the base liquid that carries flavour and gelatin from the meat.
Whole black pepper
Adds a warm, aromatic note that seasons the concentrated gravy.

The step that matters

Testing the reduction for doneness. Boiling down concentrates both flavour and gelatin. The cold-spoon test shows whether the gravy will set firm when cooled. Stopping too early leaves it runny, while over-reducing can scorch or make it overly dense and salty-tasting.

“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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