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Soup

Gravy Soup

A soup made by simmering a whole head of meat in water, seasoned with salt, sherry, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,273 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Gravy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the head and place it in a pot with enough water to cover it and 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt.

  2. Boil for 10 minutes, then discard the liquid.

Simmer and serve

  1. Add 3 quarts of fresh water and simmer gently for 2 hours.

  2. Serve small pieces of the best parts of the head in the soup.

  3. Flavor with sherry and lemon juice.

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. Sherry + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Meat + sherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together505 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  3. Meat + lemontop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,817 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken head
Provides the main meat and body of the soup as it simmers.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, sherry):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, sherry. 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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