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Soup

Portable Soup

A hearty soup made with veal, beef, ham, anchovies, mace, celery, carrots, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Portable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a large cauldron.

  2. Add the meat and bones, anchovies, and mace.

  3. Wash and chop the celery, then add it along with the sliced carrots.

  4. Cover the cauldron tightly and set it over moderate heat.

  5. When the gravy begins to draw, keep removing it until all is extracted.

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 + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

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

  3. Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Beef + celerytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Mace + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the meat and bones that release gelatin and body into the broth as it simmers.
Beef
Adds deep meaty flavour and richness to the broth during the long gentle extraction.
Ham
Contributes savoury, salty depth to the soup's overall flavour.
Butter
Carries flavour and adds richness, starting the base before the meat goes in.
Anchovies
Add a salty, savoury depth that rounds out the meat flavours without tasting fishy.
Celery
Contributes aromatic, vegetal flavour to the broth as it cooks down.

The step that matters

Covering and keeping the heat moderate. A tightly covered pot over moderate heat holds in moisture and extracts flavour gently. Too much heat can boil the liquid hard, cloud the broth and toughen the meat.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, beef, ham, butter, celery, carrot):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, beef, ham, butter, celery, carrot. 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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