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Beef Soup

A hearty soup of beef, rice, vegetables, and herbs simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Stew the beef for 4 hours over moderate heat.

  2. Add rice and enough water to keep it covered.

  3. One hour before finishing, add onions, potatoes, and carrots if desired.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Add lemon peel or herbs if using.

Add the dumplings

  1. Mix eggs with milk and flour, then drop into the soup with a spoon.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Lemon + sagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef (in the method)
Slow stewing softens its connective tissue and builds the rich, savory broth.
Potatoes
Starch thickens the broth slightly and gives the soup body as they soften.
Eggs
Egg and flour dumplings set as they cook, forming soft, tender pieces in the soup.
Rice
Starch from the rice thickens the broth and adds bulk to the soup.

The step that matters

Dropping the egg mixture into the soup. The batter must be dropped into gently simmering liquid so the eggs set into distinct pieces rather than dispersing or becoming tough from boiling too hard.

“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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