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Vegetable Soup with Beef

A hearty soup made with beef bone, vegetables, and rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 590 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup with Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the soup bone in a large pot and add the cold water.

  2. Heat over medium heat until it slowly comes to a boil, skimming off any foam.

  3. Simmer gently for 4 hours.

  4. Remove the meat and skim the broth again.

Finish and serve

  1. Wash and dice the vegetables, then add them to the soup.

  2. Simmer for an additional hour, season to taste, and serve.

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 + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 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

Soup bone
Releases flavor and gelatin into the water, giving the broth body and savory depth.
Potato
Adds starch that softens during simmering, thickening the broth slightly and adding body.
Rice
Releases starch as it cooks, helping thicken the broth.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness that balances the savory broth.
Onion
Contributes aromatic sweetness and depth as it softens in the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam. Foam carries impurities and proteins from the bones that can cloud the broth and taint its flavor. Skimming early and again after the meat is removed keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turnip, potato, carrot, parsnip, celery, cabbage, pepper):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turnip, potato, carrot, parsnip, celery, cabbage, 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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