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Clear Soup

A clear beef soup made with lean beef, onion, carrot, egg whites, and brown stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Clear Soup

Why it works: Onion and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Clear Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Remove the fat from the beef and chop it finely.

  2. Place the chopped beef in a basin of cold water and stir to separate it.

  3. Let it stand for 5 minutes.

Make and clarify the soup

  1. Pour the beef and water into a saucepan with the chopped onion, carrot, egg whites, and brown stock.

  2. Heat the mixture while whisking until it begins to rise.

  3. Stop whisking and let it boil for 2 minutes.

  4. Cover the saucepan and let it sit until a thick crust forms on top.

  5. Strain the soup through a jelly bag or soup cloth.

Serve

  1. Optionally, add small strips or wafers of boiled vegetables before serving.

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. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

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

  4. Beef + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + eggtop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,333 recipes

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

Onion and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,333 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Very lean beef
Provides the meat flavour and, once chopped and stirred, the particles that clarify the soup.
Egg whites
Coagulate as they heat, trapping suspended particles into a crust that clears the broth.
Brown stock
Forms the base of the soup and supplies most of its savoury flavour.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth of flavour to the broth.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the broth.

The step that matters

Stop whisking and let it boil for 2 minutes. Whisking while the egg whites and beef coagulate would break up the forming crust, leaving the soup cloudy. Once it begins to rise, stop stirring so the crust can form and trap the particles.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, egg):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, egg. 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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