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Shin of Beef Soup

A hearty soup made with beef shin, suet, carrots, turnips, onions, herbs, celery, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery 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 ↓

Shin of Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef into small pieces.

  2. Melt the suet in a saucepan and fry the beef until browned.

  3. Remove the beef from the suet and set aside.

  4. Prepare the vegetables by chopping them into small pieces and fry them lightly.

Make the soup

  1. Drain any excess fat from the saucepan and return the beef and vegetables.

  2. Cover with cold water, add the bunch of herbs, and season with salt.

  3. Cook gently for 4 hours.

  4. After straining the soup, thicken it with any grain and add Bovril to enhance the 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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Shin of beef
Provides the main meat and, as it cooks slowly, rich flavor and body to the broth.
Suet
Fat used for frying the beef and vegetables, adding richness and browning.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften and brown in the fat.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aroma to the broth as they cook down.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and body to the broth as they cook down.

The step that matters

Frying the beef until browned. Browning meat creates deeper savory flavors through the Maillard reaction. Pale, crowded meat stews grey and tastes flat, so brown it in batches.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Beetrootfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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