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Soup

Matso Soup

A hearty beef bone soup made with shin, gravy beef, calf's foot, celery, carrots, turnips, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Matso Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the shin of beef, gravy beef, and calf's foot in 3-4 quarts of water.

  2. Season with celery, carrots, turnips, and pepper.

  3. Simmer until the meat is tender.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 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

Shin of beef
Its connective tissue breaks down into gelatin, giving the broth body and richness.
Gravy beef
Slow simmering turns the tough meat tender and adds savoury beef flavour to the broth.
Calf's foot
Rich in collagen, it releases gelatin that gives the soup a silky, full mouthfeel.
Celery
Adds a fresh, aromatic savouriness that rounds out the broth.
Carrots
Contribute gentle sweetness and aroma that balance the meaty flavour.
Turnips
Add a mild, slightly peppery sweetness and earthy depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer until the meat is tender. Keep the liquid at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil. Slow heat lets collagen in the shin, gravy beef and calf's foot convert to gelatin, while fast boiling toughens muscle fibres and can cloud the broth.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Parsnipfits about as well
  3. Turnipthe original
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, celery, carrot, pepper. 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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