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Family Soup

A hearty beef soup with leeks, carrots, onions, cabbage, and herbs simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,310 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Family Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Wash the beef pieces well and place them in a large pot.

  2. Add 2 gallons of water and 4 tablespoons of coarse sea salt.

  3. Bring to a hard boil, skimming off any scum that rises.

  4. Reduce heat and simmer steadily for 8 hours.

Add the vegetables and herbs

  1. After 3 hours, add the leeks, carrots, onions, and cabbage.

  2. If desired, substitute more vegetables or tomatoes for cabbage.

  3. Add the bunch of herbs tied in muslin.

  4. Two hours before serving, remove the best part of the meat if desired.

  5. Strain the soup before serving.

  6. For leftovers, simmer the next day for 1 hour to enhance flavor.

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. Leek + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Leek + cabbagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Leek + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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

Beef shin or leg
Provides rich meat flavor and gelatin as it simmers slowly for a long time.
Leeks
Add a mild, sweet onion-like flavor to the broth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the broth as they soften.
Cabbage
Adds mild sweetness and soft texture to the soup as it cooks.

The step that matters

Skimming after the boil. Bringing the water to a hard boil releases scum from the beef. Skimming it off keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting rather than cloudy or greasy.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, leek, carrot, onion. 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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