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Soup

Clear Gravy Soups

A clear broth made from ham, veal, beef, turnips, onions, carrots, celery, mace, cloves, and 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 Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the ham into slices and place them at the bottom of a large stew-pan or stock pot.

  2. Add the veal and lean beef, breaking the bones and laying them on the meat.

  3. Peel the turnips, onions, and cut the carrots and celery into pieces.

  4. Add the mace and cloves to the pot.

Brown and simmer

  1. Cover the pot and set it over a clear fire.

  2. When the meat begins to stick, turn it until a nice brown glaze forms at the bottom.

  3. Cover the meat with hot water.

  4. Add ½ pint when it comes to a boil.

  5. Skim off the scum.

  6. Add another ½ pint of cold water.

  7. Skim again until no more scum rises.

  8. Let it boil gently for four hours.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain through a clean cloth without squeezing into a clean container.

  2. Let it cool, then remove all the fat before bottling.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 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

Veal
Breaks down during long simmering to give the stock body and gelatin.
Lean beef
Adds deep meaty flavor and body to the stock as it simmers.
Ham
Adds savory, salty flavor to the stock.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock.
Onions
Add savory depth and sweetness as they cook down in the stock.

The step that matters

Skim off the scum. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the liquid heats. Removing it early keeps the stock clear and free of cloudiness and off flavors.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, veal, beef, turnip, onion, carrot, celery):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, beef, turnip, onion, carrot, 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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