Skip to main content
Main

Clear Gravy-Soup

A clear soup made from beef shin, veal knuckle, optional ham, and vegetables, simmered slowly and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Clear Gravy-Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat and grease a nicely tinned stew pot with butter or marrow.

  2. Add the chopped meat, carrot, celery, onions, and turnip; sauté over medium heat until fragrant but not burnt.

Make the soup

  1. Pour in 5 quarts of soft water and skim off any scum that forms.

  2. Add 1 pint of cold water to refresh the mixture and skim again until the soup is clear.

  3. Simmer the pot slowly for 4 hours without stirring from the bottom.

Finish

  1. Remove from heat, let it settle, skim off the fat, and strain the soup.

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. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Shin of beef
Connective tissue breaks down into gelatin during long simmering, giving the soup body.
Veal knuckle
Bones and cartilage release gelatin, adding richness and body to the broth.
Onions
Sweet, savory flavor base that deepens when gently sautéed.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savory flavor to the broth.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly without stirring from the bottom. A rapid boil churns fat and fine particles into the liquid, clouding it. A gentle simmer lets them rise and be skimmed off, keeping the soup clear.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Turnipthe original
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, ham, carrot, celery, onion, butter. 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.

You might also like

Beef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipes