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Another Receipt for Gravy Soup

A beef gravy soup with onions, carrots, vegetables, butter, flour, soy sauce, sherry, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Another Receipt for Gravy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Start the broth

  1. Combine the beef, onions, carrots, and bouillon in a deep stewpan.

  2. Set over high heat until the broth reduces.

  3. Lower the heat and simmer until a glaze forms at the bottom.

  4. Add the appropriate amount of water and continue cooking.

Brown and stew

  1. Dredge the beef with flour.

  2. Season the beef with salt and pepper.

  3. Fry the beef until browned.

  4. Stew the beef for six hours with 1 pint of water for each pound of meat and the vegetables (except onions).

  5. Fry the onions.

  6. Add the fried onions to the soup for every three quarts.

Finish

  1. Strain the soup to remove fat.

  2. Thicken the soup with butter and flour mixed smoothly.

  3. Add soy sauce, sherry, and cayenne pepper. 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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main meaty flavour, and browning the dredged pieces adds deeper savoury notes.
Flour
Thickens the soup when mixed with butter and cooked into the liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the thickened soup.
Onions
Softened and fried, they add sweetness and a savoury base to the broth.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth that lift the rich beef flavour.
Bouillon
Supplies a concentrated savoury base that reduces to deepen the broth.

The step that matters

Thickening with butter and flour. Flour must be blended smoothly with the butter and then cooked into the hot soup, or it forms lumps. Cooking it long enough also removes the raw starch taste.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, pepper, meat, butter, sauce, sherry):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, pepper, meat, butter, sauce, 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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