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Clear Gravy Soup

A clear soup made by simmering beef, veal, mutton, trimmings, and vegetables in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Clear Gravy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat a large stew-pan or stock-pot and rub the bottom and sides with marrow or butter.

  2. Add the beef, veal, mutton, meat trimmings, carrot, celery, onions, leeks, turnip, and salt.

  3. Cook over a brisk fire until it catches but does not burn.

Simmer and strain

  1. Add 5 quarts of soft water and skim once.

  2. Add 1 pint of cold water to raise more scum.

  3. Simmer slowly for 4 hours.

  4. Skim off the fat and strain the soup.

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 + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Shin of beef
Provides meat flavour and gelatin that gives the stock body as it simmers.
Veal knuckle or scrag
Adds gelatin from bones and joints, giving the finished stock a fuller body.
Mutton shanks or knuckle
Contributes bone-derived gelatin and a richer, deeper savoury flavour.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavour that rounds out the savoury base of the stock.
Onions
Add sweetness and depth as they cook slowly into the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the liquid heats. Skimming it removes cloudiness and off-flavours, which keeps the stock clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, mutton, meat, carrot, onion, leek):

  1. Celerythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Garlicfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, mutton, meat, carrot, onion, leek. 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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