Why it works: Meat and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,924 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Gravy Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the meat
Open a 4-pound tin of meat.
Place the tin in boiling water for 2–3 minutes to loosen the fat and jelly.
Pour a little hot water into the tin to dissolve the jelly and gravy without soaking the meat.
Turn the meat into a large basin.
Pour more boiling water over the meat.
Remove the meat to a dish.
Make the soup
Pour the contents of the basin into a 2-quart saucepan.
Add enough boiling water to make 1 quart or 3 pints of stock.
Bring to a boil.
Skim off the fat.
Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Strain into a soup tureen over small cubes of toasted bread.
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.
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Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,924 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,777 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Meat in a tin
- Provides the main flavour and body of the stock, with its fat and jelly giving richness.
- Toasted bread
- Adds crisp texture to the soup when it is served over the cubes.
The step that matters
Skim off the fat. Fat that is not removed floats on the hot stock and makes the soup greasy on the palate. Skimming while the liquid is hot and still lets the fat rise and separate cleanly.
“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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