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Beefsteak Soup

A hearty soup made with beefsteak, bone, rice, tomatoes, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Beefsteak Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, combine the chopped beefsteak and whole bone with cold water.

  2. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Add the rice and chopped tomatoes.

  4. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer slowly for 2 hours.

  5. Remove the bone and serve hot.

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. Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Beef + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Beefsteak
Provides rich beef flavor to the broth as it simmers.
Whole beef bone
Adds body and savory depth to the broth during the long simmer.
Rice
Absorbs liquid and thickens the soup as it cooks.
Tomatoes
Contribute acidity and a fresh, tangy flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly after bringing to a boil. A gentle simmer extracts flavor from the beef and bone without making the broth cloudy or greasy. Boiling hard emulsifies fat into the liquid and can toughen the meat, so keeping the heat low for the full 2 hours matters.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, rice):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, rice. 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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