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Beef Gravy Soup

A hearty beef soup made by simmering beef, bones, vegetables, and herbs for hours, then strained and served with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Beef Gravy Soup

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Fry the beef and onions in dripping until light brown.

  2. Add 2 quarts of water and cook for one hour.

  3. Add the chopped vegetables and the remaining 3 quarts of cold water.

  4. Boil slowly for four hours, skimming often.

  5. Strain the soup.

  6. Pulp the vegetables.

  7. Put the meat and bones back into the stock-pot.

Season and portion

  1. Season well.

  2. Divide the broth into two portions.

  3. Salt one portion.

  4. Pour the salted portion into the stock-pot.

  5. When cold, set one portion on ice for the next day.

  6. Cool the other portion.

  7. Skim the other portion until clear.

Serve

  1. Serve with diced fried bread in the tureen.

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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

Lean beef
Provides the meat flavour and body that the broth is built on.
Mutton or beef bones
Release gelatine and savoury flavour into the water during the long simmer.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth once browned in the dripping.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the broth.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and body to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim often during the long boil. Fat and fine impurities rise to the surface during the simmer. Skimming them keeps the broth clean-tasting and clear, which matters because the portion set aside later is skimmed again until clear.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mutton, carrot, turnip, 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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