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Beef Gravy Soup

A hearty beef gravy soup made with beef, bones, vegetables, and herbs, thickened with corn starch.

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 ↓

Beef Gravy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat and bones

  1. Cut the beef into small strips.

  2. Fry the beef in plenty of dripping until browned.

  3. Remove the meat.

  4. Lightly fry the bones.

  5. Add the meat and bones to a soup pot.

Make the soup

  1. Fry the sliced onions until brown and add the onions to the pot.

  2. Pour in the 5 quarts of water.

  3. Cook slowly for 1 hour, then skim off the scum.

  4. Add the sliced carrots, turnips, celery, and herbs.

  5. Boil gently for 4 hours.

  6. Strain the soup, picking out the meat and bones.

  7. Place the meat and bones in a stock jar.

  8. Pulp the vegetables into the soup.

  9. Season to taste.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour all but 2 quarts into the stock jar.

  2. Cool the reserved soup, then skim the reserved soup.

  3. Reheat and add the corn starch.

  4. Boil 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. 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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  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

Coarse lean beef
Provides meaty flavor and body as it browns and cooks slowly into the broth.
Bones
Release gelatin and savory flavor into the water during long simmering, enriching the broth.
Onions
Browning them first adds deep, sweet, savory flavor to the soup.
Corn starch
Thickens the soup into a gravy-like consistency when heated with the liquid.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum. Impurities and fat rise to the surface during the first simmer. Removing them early keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, turnip, carrot, celery, pepper, corn. 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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