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Clear Soup

A clear broth made from meat, bone, vegetables, and herbs, simmered for several hours and clarified.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Clear Soup

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 ↓

Clear Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Cut the meat into small pieces and soak with the bone in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Cook gently for 3 hours, then add the finely chopped vegetables and seasonings.

  3. Cook for 2 hours longer; strain, cool, remove fat, and clarify.

Optional touches

  1. If desired, heat several pieces of lemon rind with the stock for added flavor.

  2. Browning part of the meat and vegetables will improve the color and flavor of the stock.

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

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

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  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

Meat and bone
Releases gelatin and savory flavor into the water, giving the stock body and depth.
Egg white
Traps cloudy particles during clarifying so the finished stock looks clear.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aromatic flavor as it cooks down into the stock.
Turnip
Contributes subtle sweetness and vegetable flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Clarifying the strained stock. Cloudy particles and fat stay suspended unless removed. Cooling lets fat rise and solidify so it can be lifted off, and the egg white binds fine particles as it coagulates, leaving the stock clear.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, carrot, parsley, turnip, celery, clove):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, carrot, parsley, turnip, celery, clove. 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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