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Soup

Clearing Soup

A clear beef and veal stock soup simmered with vegetables for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Clearing Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. For the stock, combine 3 lbs beef (including ½ lb bone) and 1 lb veal and bone with 4 quarts cold water.

  2. Heat slowly, skimming off scum and bubbles, and add vegetables.

  3. Do not cover the stock-pot and simmer for 5 hours before straining through a hair sieve.

Clarify the soup

  1. In a stewpan, combine the chopped beef and stock with some of the same vegetables used to flavor the stock.

  2. Stir with a wooden spoon until the stock boils.

  3. Reduce heat and let it simmer for about 30 minutes without boiling.

  4. Strain the mixture twice through a fine cloth.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh lean beef
Binds with proteins as it cooks, collecting impurities so the stock can be clarified clear.
Stock
Provides the liquid base and the main savory flavor of the soup.
Beef and veal bones
Release gelatin and flavor into the water during long simmering, giving body to the stock.

The step that matters

Simmer without boiling. A rolling boil breaks up the clarifying raft of beef and emulsifies fat and particles into the liquid, leaving the soup cloudy. Keeping it at a gentle simmer lets the raft form and settle so the strained soup stays clear.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, turnip, celery, leek, veal):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Lettucefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, celery, leek, veal. 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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