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Restorative Soup

A clear soup made from veal, mutton, and beef bones simmered for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,373 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Restorative Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Put the water and salt into a strong pan.

  2. Wipe the meat.

  3. Remove fat from the meat.

  4. Cut the meat into small pieces.

  5. Add the meat to the water immediately.

  6. Remove marrow from the bones.

  7. Remove skin from the bones.

  8. Remove fat from the bones.

  9. Wash the bones.

  10. Add the bones to the pan.

Simmer

  1. Bring the mixture slowly to a boil.

  2. Skim the surface if necessary.

  3. Simmer for 3 to 4 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the soup through a fine sieve.

  2. When cold, remove any fat.

  3. Reheat the soup.

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. Mutton + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

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

  2. Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Veal + muttontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle
Bones and connective tissue release gelatin, giving the broth body and a smooth mouthfeel.
Mutton neck or knuckle
Bones and connective tissue release gelatin and rich flavor into the broth.
Beef shin
Connective tissue breaks down into gelatin during long simmering, adding body and savory depth.

The step that matters

Bring the mixture slowly to a boil.. Heating gently from cold lets fat and coagulated proteins rise to the surface where they can be skimmed. A rapid boil breaks fat into fine droplets and clouds the broth.

“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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