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Gravy Soup

A beef soup made with gravy beef, flour, butter, carrot, mace, celery, herbs, peppercorns, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Gravy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the gravy beef into small pieces.

  2. Add the flour to the beef.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  2. Add the beef and flour to the pan and fry until browned.

  3. Add the sliced carrot, mace, peppercorns, salt, celery, and herbs.

  4. Pour in the warm water and bring to a boil.

  5. Simmer gently for four hours.

  6. Strain the soup and it is ready to 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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Gravy beef
Provides the main body of meat flavour and, after long simmering, tender meat and rich savoury depth.
Flour
Coats the beef so it browns well and lightly thickens the soup as it cooks.
Butter
Fat for frying the beef, carrying flavour and helping the meat brown.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and aroma as it softens and releases its flavour into the broth.

The step that matters

Frying the beef until browned. Browning the floured beef creates deep, roasted flavours through the Maillard reaction. Pale, steamed meat gives a flat, dull broth, so the pieces need space and enough heat.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, butter, carrot, celery, thyme, parsley):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, butter, carrot, celery, thyme, parsley. 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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