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Another Recipe for Black Soup

A hearty beef soup with carrots, onions, potatoes, parsley, browned flour, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Another Recipe for Black Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Cut the beefsteak into pieces.

  2. Place the beefsteak in a pot with 3 quarts of water.

  3. Boil for 4 hours. Skim the surface constantly.

  4. Peel and chop the vegetables.

  5. Add the vegetables to the soup.

  6. Boil for 1 hour longer.

Finish the soup

  1. Strain through a colander.

  2. Return the liquid to the pot.

  3. Add the parsley.

  4. Add the browned flour.

  5. Boil slowly for 1 hour.

  6. Heat the wine. Pour the wine into the soup.

  7. Make meatballs from the cooked meat. Add the meatballs to the soup.

  8. Add thin slices of lemon.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 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

Beefsteak
Long simmering releases flavor and gelatin into the broth, giving body to the soup.
Browned flour
Thickens the broth and adds a toasted, darker color and nutty flavor.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich, long-cooked broth.
Potatoes
Break down during cooking to add starch, body and mild sweetness to the soup.

The step that matters

Skim the surface constantly. Foam and fat rising during the long boil can cloud the broth and give it an greasy taste. Removing them keeps the soup clear and clean-flavored.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, potato, parsley, flour, wine, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, potato, parsley, flour, wine, pepper. 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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