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Bone Soup

A hearty soup made by simmering bones with vegetables, herbs, and seasonings for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Bone Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the bones

  1. Break the bones into small pieces and fry them in hot fat until well browned.

Make the soup

  1. Add the water and salt, bring to a boil, and skim well.

  2. Add the prepared vegetables, herbs, peppercorns, and cloves, and cook gently for about 5 hours, skimming occasionally.

  3. Strain the soup, return it to the saucepan, and season to taste.

Thicken and serve

  1. When the soup boils, sprinkle in the sago and simmer for 10 minutes longer to cook it, then serve.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Bones
Release gelatin and savoury flavour into the broth as they simmer for hours.
Fat
Carries browning flavour from the bones and adds richness to the finished soup.
Sago
Thickens the broth as its starch swells and gelatinises during simmering.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they cook down into the broth.
Carrots
Contribute gentle sweetness and body to the simmering broth.

The step that matters

Brown the bones until well browned. Deep browning through frying creates Maillard flavours that carry into the broth, so pale bones yield a flatter, less savoury soup.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, parsley, thyme, clove, semolina. 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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