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Gravy Soup

A clear meat broth made from beef, ham, veal bones, and vegetables, simmered for hours and strained.

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 ↓

Gravy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat from the bones, chop it finely, and place it in a saucepan with the bones and drippings. Brown over medium heat.

  2. Peel the vegetables and stick the onion with the cloves. Make a bouquet garni with the vegetables.

Make the broth

  1. Add 3 quarts of boiling water to the saucepan.

  2. Let it boil gently until clear, skimming off any scum.

  3. Add the whole vegetables and bouquet garni.

  4. Simmer gently for 2 hours or longer if possible.

  5. Strain the soup through a jelly bag without pressing the meat or vegetables.

  6. The meat can be minced with potatoes and seasoned.

Finish and serve

  1. Let the soup cool to remove the fat, or skim it off if short on time.

  2. Check seasoning, heat, and serve.

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Soup meat with marrow bone
Gives the broth its main beefy flavour and body as it simmers.
Veal bones
Release gelatin during long simmering, giving the broth a fuller, silkier mouthfeel.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they cook into the broth.
Carrots
Contribute gentle sweetness and aromatic background to the broth.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savoury background flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Let it boil gently until clear, skimming off any scum. A hard boil emulsifies fat and breaks up proteins into cloudy particles, so a gentle simmer and skimming keep the broth clear.

Swap the clove

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

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

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