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Art of Preparing the Celebrated Portable Soup Cakes

A soup made from beef, veal, ham bone, onions, cayenne pepper, mace, and water, simmered and thickened into cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Art of Preparing the Celebrated Portable Soup Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Break all the bones and place them in a pot.

  2. Add just enough water to cover the meat.

  3. Add Cayenne pepper, mace, and onions.

  4. Boil slowly for 3 hours until the meat falls apart.

  5. Strain the liquid and let it cool until the fat solidifies on top.

Reduce and thicken

  1. Remove the fat and pour the soup into a saucepan.

  2. Boil the soup vigorously for 6 hours, stirring constantly.

  3. Let it cool overnight, then place it in a bowl.

  4. Set the bowl in a pot of boiling water and stir until the soup thickens and becomes glutinous.

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

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

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

  5. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef shin
Releases gelatin and savory flavor into the stock as it simmers slowly.
Veal knuckle
Its bones and connective tissue add gelatin, body and richness to the soup.
Ham bone
Contributes salty, smoky depth and gelatin from the bone and lean meat.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma to the stock as they cook down.

The step that matters

Boil the soup vigorously for 6 hours, stirring constantly. Long reduction concentrates the stock and its dissolved gelatin, and constant stirring prevents scorching on the bottom of the pan. Stopping early leaves a thin soup that will not set when cooled.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, ham, meat, pepper, onion):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, ham, meat, pepper, onion. 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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