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Beef Soup

A bone broth made by frying beef bones, simmering with vegetables and spices, then strained and served with optional vermicelli or pearl barley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a kettle, fry the beef bones until nicely browned.

  2. Cover the bones with water and cover the kettle tightly.

  3. Cook slowly until the meat falls from the bones.

  4. Strain the soup through a colander and let it sit overnight to remove fat.

Finish and serve

  1. On the day of serving, fry the carrot, onion, and turnip until browned.

  2. Add sugar, mace, cloves, allspice, and celery seed to the vegetables.

  3. Cook the mixture slowly in the soup for one hour.

  4. Strain again before serving.

  5. If using vermicelli or pearl barley, soak in water beforehand.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Carrot + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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

Beef bones
Browning them first builds deep, savory flavor in the broth.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body to the soup as it cooks down.
Onion
Browning adds sweetness and savory depth to the soup.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and body to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Let the broth sit overnight and skim the fat. Fat that is not removed after chilling will float as a greasy layer and make the soup heavy on the palate. Straining and chilling overnight lets the fat solidify on top so it can be lifted off cleanly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, onion, turnip, sugar, clove, allspice):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, onion, turnip, sugar, clove, allspice. 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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