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Economical Soup

A hearty soup made with lean beef or mutton, turnip, carrots, onions, peppercorns, and celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery 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 ↓

Economical Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the meat into slices and fry them in a frying pan.

  2. Transfer the meat and its gravy to a soup pot.

Make the soup

  1. Add turnip, carrots, onions, black peppercorns, and celery to the pot.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and let it simmer until the meat is dissolved.

  3. For best results, place the soup on a slow fire after dinner and leave it overnight.

Strain and store

  1. Strain the soup when warm and let it sit for a day.

  2. Remove the fat and store it in a clean basin for frying.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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 or lean mutton
Breaks down during long simmering to give the soup its meaty body and flavor.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and body as it softens in the simmering liquid.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and color to the broth as they cook.
Onions
Release sugars and aromatic compounds that deepen the flavor of the broth.
Celery
Adds a fresh, savory aroma that rounds out the broth's flavor.

The step that matters

Simmering until the meat dissolves. A gentle simmer lets collagen in the meat slowly break down into gelatin, which gives body to the broth. A hard boil can make the liquid cloudy and greasy, so keep it at a low, steady simmer.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Beetrootfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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