Skip to main content
Main

Clear Soup

A clear soup made from soup meat, water, salt, pepper, onion, carrot, and turnip, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Clear Soup

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Clear Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Wash the soup meat well and place it in a large pot with cold water.

  2. Add salt and pepper, then bring to a boil slowly.

  3. Skim the surface as it begins to boil, then add ½ cup cold water and skim again.

  4. When it starts to boil again, stir in another ½ cup water and skim once more.

Simmer and strain

  1. After boiling for 2 hours, add the onion, carrot, and turnip.

  2. Cook for an additional 3 hours, then strain the soup.

  3. Allow to cool, remove the fat, and strain through a napkin to remove sediment.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. 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

Soup meat
Releases flavour and gelatin into the water during long simmering, giving the broth body.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the broth as it simmers.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and aroma to the broth.
Turnip
Adds mild, earthy flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the surface as it heats. Proteins and impurities rise to the surface as the water heats and coagulate into grey foam. Removing them early keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting, so skim carefully as it first boils.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, clove, carrot, turnip):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, clove, carrot, turnip. 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.

More clear soup recipes

Stock 33Beef 3 See all 53 →

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesTurnip SoupTurnip Soup43 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipes