Skip to main content
Main

Leg of Beef Soup

A hearty soup made with a boned leg of beef, veal broth, root vegetables, herbs, and calf's feet, thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Leg of Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the boned leg of beef in a stewpan with the veal broth.

  2. Add the carrots, turnips, onions, allspice, shallots, garlic, parsley, marjoram, basil, savory, and thyme.

  3. Bring to a boil, skim off any foam, and let it stew until the beef is tender.

Prepare the meats

  1. Remove the leg of beef from the broth and cut it into small dice.

  2. Dice the boiled calf's feet in the same manner.

Thicken and finish

  1. Strain the broth and thicken it with a mixture of flour and butter.

  2. Stir in the Port wine, season with Cayenne pepper, salt, and lemon juice.

  3. Add the diced meats and boil everything together for 30 minutes.

  4. Serve in a tureen.

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. Allspice + clovetop 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. Turnip + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together202 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

Beef leg
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long stewing and adds savory flavor to the broth.
Calf's feet
Release gelatin during boiling, giving the soup body and a silky, rich mouthfeel.
Flour and butter
Form a roux that thickens the strained broth into a smooth, body-rich soup.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor to the finished soup.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich broth and balances its savory flavors.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam while the broth comes to a boil. Foam contains coagulated proteins and impurities that cloud the broth and can taste bitter if left in, so removing it early keeps the soup clear and clean-flavored.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, carrot, turnip, allspice, shallot, 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.

You might also like

Beef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes