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A hearty broth made with beef, veal, salt pork, mutton, vegetables, onions, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Broths and Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine the beef, veal, salt pork, and mutton with water in a large pot and bring to a boil.

  2. Reduce heat and simmer until the meat is tender but not overcooked.

  3. Increase heat to bring the broth to a rolling boil, add the chopped vegetables, and cook uncovered until tender.

Finish with onions

  1. Slice the onions and fry them in butter until rich brown.

  2. Add the fried onions to the soup and stir to combine.

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 + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

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

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

  3. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 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

Lean beef
Releases flavor and gelatin into the broth as it simmers.
Knuckle of veal
Adds body and richness to the broth through collagen from bone and connective tissue.
Salt pork
Contributes fat and savory flavor that carries through the broth.
Neck or shoulder of mutton
Adds meaty flavor and fat to the broth during long simmering.
Onions
Browning in butter builds sweetness and deep savory flavor in the soup.
Butter
Carries the onions' browning and adds richness to the finished broth.

The step that matters

Simmering the meat gently. Keeping the broth at a gentle simmer tenderizes the meat and draws out flavor and gelatin without toughening the proteins or making the broth cloudy. A hard boil can leave the meat stringy and the broth murky.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, pork, mutton, onion, butter):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, pork, mutton, onion, butter. 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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