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Soup

Soups and Broths

A simple broth made by simmering meat with butter, roots, herbs, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,594 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Soups and Broths

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Ensure your pots and pans are very clean and properly tinned.

  2. Place the meat at the bottom of the pot and add a large piece of butter.

  3. Cut the roots and herbs small and lay them over the meat.

Cook

  1. Cover the pot tightly and keep it over a low heat to draw out the flavors.

  2. When the gravy is almost dried up, replenish it with water.

  3. Once it begins to boil, remove the fat and follow specific directions for the type of soup or broth you are making.

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. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Provides the main savoury flavour and body that the broth is built on.
Roots and herbs
Release aroma and flavour into the liquid as they cook slowly under cover.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the gravy a richer mouthfeel.
Water
Replaces liquid lost to evaporation so the broth keeps simmering and extracting flavour.

The step that matters

Keeping the heat low and the pot covered. A low, covered simmer draws flavour out gradually without evaporating too much liquid or boiling the meat tough. Boiling hard can make the broth cloudy and greasy.

“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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