Name: Beef Soup
Ingredients: shank of beef; water; 1 cup rice or macaroni (broken into small bits); pepper; coarse sea salt; catsup (or powdered cloves); 2 onions (sliced); 1 potato (sliced); 1 carrot (sliced)

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the shank of beef in enough water to cover it until tender.
Remove the beef and discard the fat.
Add rice or macaroni, and season with pepper, salt, and catsup (or powdered cloves).
Slice the onions, potato, and carrot, and add them to the pot.
Boil 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.

Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,107 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,873 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,555 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

Shank of beef: Provides the main meat and rich flavor as it simmers into the broth.
Rice or macaroni: Thickens the broth slightly and adds body as the starch cooks.
Potato: Releases starch as it cooks, adding body and softness to the soup.

Swap the clove

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

Celeryfits better
Parsleyfits better
Cuminfits better
Clovethe original

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