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Gravy Soup

A hearty beef soup made by simmering beef slices, bones, and vegetables in water for 12 hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Gravy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the beef

  1. Brown the beef slices in butter, ensuring they do not burn.

  2. Place the browned beef and cracked bones in a pot.

  3. Pour in 4 quarts of boiling water.

Simmer the broth

  1. Boil briskly uncovered, adding cold water to remove scum.

  2. Once scum is removed, add sliced carrots, turnips, onions, celery (or celery seed), herbs, salt, pepper, cloves, and mace.

  3. Cover the pot and simmer for 12 hours.

  4. Strain the soup through a fine sieve.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 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

Beef
Browning in butter builds savoury flavour, and the long simmer draws gelatin and body into the broth.
Cracked bones
Release collagen and minerals during the long simmer, adding body and richness to the broth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth.
Onions
Contribute savoury sweetness and depth as they cook down in the liquid.

The step that matters

Boil briskly, then skim the scum. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that cloud the broth and taste bitter if left in. Adding cold water makes the impurities rise and clot so they can be removed, keeping the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, carrot, turnip, onion, celery, 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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