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Baked Soup

A baked soup of lean beef, onions, carrots, and rice simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

  1. Place the beef, onions, carrots, and rice in a stewpan or earthenware jar, then add the water.

  2. Cover and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for several hours until the beef is tender.

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. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,477 recipes

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

  4. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  5. Beef + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Becomes tender through long, moist cooking, which breaks down its connective tissue.
Rice
Absorbs liquid as it cooks, thickening the soup and adding body.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma as they soften in the broth.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body as they soften during slow cooking.

The step that matters

Cover and bake until the beef is tender. Lean beef turns tough if cooked too briefly. Slow, covered baking in liquid gives the connective tissue time to break down into gelatin, so the meat becomes tender. Stopping early leaves it chewy.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, rice. 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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