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Meat Soups

A hearty beef stock soup with carrots, turnips, cabbage, corn, celery, and tomatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Meat Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Place beef and bones in a pot with water to prepare the stock a day in advance.

  2. Heat the stock gradually.

  3. Let it boil slowly for at least 6 hours.

  4. Replenish with boiling water if necessary.

  5. After 7 hours, remove the pot and cover it until the next morning.

  6. An hour before serving, remove the meat and skim off the fat from the stock.

  7. Add salt to the stock to bring up the scum and skim it off.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Slice the vegetables small.

  2. Stew the vegetables in just enough water to cover until they break apart.

  3. Cook the cabbage separately in two waters, discarding the first.

  4. Cook a single carrot whole until done, then set aside to cool.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the remaining vegetables and their cooking water to the stock.

  2. Return the pot to the heat and boil slowly for 30 minutes.

  3. Strain the soup without pressing, shaking and lightly stirring the contents of the colander.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 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

Beef (in the method)
Gives the stock its meaty flavor and body as it simmers for hours.
Turnips
Add earthy sweetness and soft texture as they stew until they break apart.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and a rounded, savory flavor to the broth.
Celery
Contributes aromatic flavor to the stock and vegetables.

The step that matters

Skimming the stock. Scum rises as the stock boils and fat floats on top. Skimming before adding vegetables keeps the broth clear and prevents a greasy, cloudy soup.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, cabbage, corn, celery):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, cabbage, corn, celery. 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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