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Broths and Soups

A clear, golden broth made by simmering meat, vegetables, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Broths and Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and simmer

  1. Place the meat in a pot with cold water and a little coarse sea salt.

  2. Heat gently, ensuring it never boils vigorously, and remove any scum that rises.

  3. When the meat is about two-thirds cooked, add the prepared vegetables.

Finish and serve

  1. Boil for 3 to 5 hours until the broth is bright, clear, and golden brown.

  2. Strain the broth through a colander into a soup tureen over slices of crusty bread.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Leek + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh meat or bones
Releases flavour and gelatin into the water, giving the broth body and savoury depth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and a rounded flavour as they soften into the liquid.
Leeks
Contribute a mild onion-like aroma and savoury background flavour.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it cooks slowly in the broth.

The step that matters

Keep the heat gentle. Vigorous boiling emulsifies fat and churns impurities into the liquid, leaving it cloudy. A gentle simmer lets scum rise to be skimmed and keeps the broth clear.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, carrot, turnip, leek, celery, onion, parsnip):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, carrot, turnip, leek, celery, onion, parsnip. 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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