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Clear Soup

A clear beef stock soup with vegetables, egg whites, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Clear Soup

Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Clear Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Ensure the stock is cold and free from fat.

  2. In a clean, well-tinned stew pan, combine the stock, vegetables, seasonings, crushed egg shells, and whipped egg whites.

Clarify and serve

  1. Whisk together over gentle heat until just boiling, then let it simmer for about 30 minutes.

  2. Strain the soup through a clean, dry cloth.

  3. Reheat the strained soup and season to taste before serving.

  4. Optionally, add a glass of sherry.

  5. Optionally, add 2 teaspoons of French vinegar or lemon juice.

  6. Optionally, add a pinch of castor sugar.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Carrot + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Celery + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites and shells
Whites coagulate as they heat, trapping suspended particles so the stock clears.
Lean beef
Chopped lean meat adds savoury flavour and body and helps bind impurities into the clarifying raft.
Brown stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the finished soup.
Onion and carrot
Vegetables add sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock during simmering.

The step that matters

Bringing the soup to a gentle simmer. If the mixture boils hard or is stirred once the egg whites begin to set, the raft breaks apart and cloudiness returns. Gentle heat lets the whites form a raft that traps particles, leaving the soup clear when strained.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, egg, carrot, celery, allspice, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, egg, carrot, celery, allspice, clove. 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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