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Clear Soup

A clear beef soup made with brown stock, finely chopped beef, vegetables, egg whites, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Clear Soup

Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 ↓

Clear Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Ensure the brown stock is cold and free from fat.

Clarify and simmer

  1. Combine the stock, vegetables, seasonings, crushed egg shells, and stiffly whisked egg whites in a clean, well-tinned stew pan.

  2. Whisk the mixture over gentle heat until just boiling.

  3. Let the soup simmer for about 1 hour.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain the soup through a clean, dry cloth.

  2. Reheat the strained soup.

  3. Season the soup to taste before serving.

  4. Optionally, add ½ glass of sherry, 1 teaspoon of French vinegar or lemon juice, and a small pinch of castor sugar when reheating.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  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. Celery + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites and shells
Whites and shells gather impurities and cloud particles, which rise and clarify the soup as it heats.
Lean neck of beef
Finely chopped beef adds meaty flavour and body to the stock.
Brown stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the whole soup.

The step that matters

Heating the egg white mixture. Whisk gently over low heat until just boiling, then simmer without stirring. Vigorous boiling or stirring breaks up the coagulated egg raft and leaves the soup cloudy instead of clear.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, egg, carrot, celery, allspice, clove. 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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