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Clear Soup

A clear soup made with beef, carrots, turnip, leeks, peas, and sugar, seasoned with sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Clear Soup

Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Clear Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove all fat from the stock.

  2. Pour the stock into a stewpan.

  3. Chop the trimmed gravy beef very finely and add the chopped beef to the stewpan.

  4. Wash the carrot, turnip, and leeks in cold water.

  5. Scrape the carrot clean and slice it.

  6. Peel the turnip and cut it into small pieces.

  7. Trim the leeks, chop them finely, and add them to the stewpan.

Cook

  1. Stir all the vegetables with the beef and stock until well mixed.

  2. Place the stewpan on the fire and stir until it boils.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Leek + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together249 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Gravy beef
Provides the meat flavour that gives the soup its body as it simmers in the stock.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the flavour of the other ingredients.
Leeks
Add a mild onion-like aroma and sweetness to the broth.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and body as it softens in the broth.
Carrot
Contributes natural sweetness and colour to the soup.

The step that matters

Removing the fat from the stock. Fat left in the stock floats on the surface and makes a cloudy, greasy soup. Skimming it before the stock is heated keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

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