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Economical Turkey Soup

A hearty soup made with beef, turkey, and rice, seasoned with salt, pepper, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Economical Turkey Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine the beef and cold water in a large pot and heat slowly.

  2. Skim the surface when it begins to boil.

  3. Add salt, onion, celery, turkey, and any leftover gravy.

  4. Let the mixture boil gently for about three hours.

  5. Strain the soup through a coarse sieve or colander.

  6. Let it cool to remove fat.

Finish the soup

  1. Thicken the soup with boiled dry rice.

  2. Simmer for about ten minutes.

  3. Season with minced parsley, salt, and pepper or cayenne to taste.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 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

Beef neck or joint
Releases flavour and body into the cold water as it simmers, forming the base of the soup.
Roast turkey flesh and bones
Adds meaty flavour and gelatin from the bones, giving the soup richness and body.
Boiled rice
Thickens the soup as its starch swells and softens during the final simmer.
Leftover gravy or forcemeat
Adds concentrated savoury flavour and extra body to the broth.

The step that matters

Cooling to remove fat. Fat separates and rises as the strained soup cools, forming a solid layer that can be lifted off. Removing it before thickening keeps the soup from tasting greasy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, celery, turkey, rice, parsley, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, celery, turkey, rice, parsley, 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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