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Gravy Soup

A hearty soup made from beef shin, veal knuckle, ham, vegetables, and spices simmered for six hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot 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 ↓

Gravy Soup

14 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the meat

  1. Slightly brown the meat and ham in the butter, but do not let them burn.

Simmer

  1. When this is done, pour the water over the meat and ham, and skim off the scum as it rises; when no more appears, add all the other ingredients and let the soup simmer slowly over the fire for six hours without stirring it from the bottom.

Strain and chill

  1. Take the pot off the heat and let it settle; skim off all the fat you can, and pass the liquid through a tammy.

  2. When the soup is perfectly cold, you can remove all the fat and leave the sediment untouched, which serves very nicely for thick gravies, hashes, etc.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

171Calories
4 gProtein
1 gFat
41 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 10 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Turnip1 medium (122g)34
Carrot1 medium (61g)25
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Celery1 stalk (40g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Celery + carrottop 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. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean meat
Browned first, it builds the savoury, meaty base flavour of the soup.
Water
Acts as the liquid that slowly draws flavour out of the meat and vegetables.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften during the long simmer.
Carrots
Contribute gentle sweetness and body to the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Brown the meat gently. Browning builds savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction, but scorched meat turns bitter and can taint the whole soup, so heat must stay moderate and the meat must be watched.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, onion, carrot, turnip, clove, sugar, pepper. 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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