Skip to main content
Main

Veal-gravy Soup

A hearty soup made with veal, ham, vegetables, and broth, simmered until the meat browns.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,097 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Veal-gravy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Garnish the bottom of a stew pan with thin pieces of lard.

  2. Layer with slices of ham, veal cutlet, onions, carrots, parsnips, and celery.

  3. Add a few cloves on top of the meat and a spoonful of broth.

Brown and simmer

  1. Soak on low heat until the veal releases its juices.

  2. Increase heat until the meat browns and sticks to the pan.

  3. Add enough light broth and some herbs, then simmer until done.

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 + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Parsnip + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together561 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Parsnip + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together306 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal cutlet
Provides the main meat, which releases juices and browns to build flavour in the soup.
Lard
Provides fat that helps the meat and vegetables brown and keeps them from sticking early.
Ham
Adds salty, savoury depth to the broth as it cooks with the veal.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften and caramelise slightly in the fat.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the soup as they cook down.

The step that matters

Increase heat until the meat browns and sticks to the pan. Browning relies on high surface heat and the Maillard reaction, which creates deep savoury flavour. Too little heat leaves the meat pale and the base bland, while the sticking bits left on the pan carry flavour into the broth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, veal, carrot, parsnip, celery, clove):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, carrot, parsnip, celery, clove. 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.

More veal soup recipes

White 23Clear 4with Macaroni 3 See all 123 →

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipes