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Family Soup

A hearty beef soup with celery, carrots, onions, and optional cabbage simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Family Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the beef into three pieces and wash it well.

Simmer the soup

  1. In a large pot, combine the beef and water, then add the salt.

  2. Hang the pot over a good fire for eight hours before serving.

  3. Once boiling, skim off the scum and reduce heat to simmer.

  4. After three hours, add the celery, carrots, and fried onions.

  5. If desired, add the chopped cabbage and continue to simmer until the vegetables are tender.

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. Celery + cabbagetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Celery + oniontop 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 shin or leg
Provides rich meaty flavor and collagen that gives the broth body as it simmers.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavor and a tender vegetable texture to the soup.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and a tender texture after long simmering.
Onions
Add aromatic depth and sweetness to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming off the scum once boiling. Foam that rises as the broth first boils contains impurities that can make the soup look cloudy and taste off. Skimming it and reducing the heat to a gentle simmer keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the cabbage

The recipe marks cabbage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, celery, carrot, onion):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

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