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Bone Soup

A clear broth made by simmering beef bones with vegetables and an eggshell for clarification.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Bone Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Chop the beef bones into small pieces and place them in a large stewpan.

  2. Cover the bones with cold water and add 1 teaspoon of coarse sea salt.

  3. Bring to a boil, skimming the surface as needed, and let it reduce until about 1 pint remains.

  4. Strain the broth into a basin and let it cool for 1-2 hours to remove the fat.

Cook the vegetables

  1. In a separate enamel saucepan, boil the chopped onions, carrot, cabbage, celery, turnip, parsley, and French beans in salted water until just tender.

  2. Drain the vegetables and set aside to cool.

Combine and clarify

  1. Remove the fat from the cooled broth, add the vegetables back to the broth, and bring to a boil.

  2. Add the eggshell to help clarify the soup and strain it through muslin.

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. 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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef bones
Release gelatin and flavour into the broth as they simmer, giving body and richness.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth to the broth as they cook.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and colour to the soup.
Eggshell
Its particles bind fine sediment so it can be strained out, clarifying the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming and removing the fat. Skimming foam as the broth comes to a boil and chilling it to lift off the fat keeps the soup clear and clean-tasting. Fat and scum left in will cloud the broth and make it greasy.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, carrot, celery, turnip, parsley, beans):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, carrot, celery, turnip, parsley, beans. 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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