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A Gravy Soup

A hearty soup made from beef, ham, mutton, celery, thyme, onions or leeks, carrots, and turnips, simmered and seasoned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot 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 ↓

A Gravy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Boil the beef, ham, and mutton in enough water to extract the meat's flavor.

  2. In a separate pot, boil the celery, thyme, onions or leeks, carrots, and turnips until soft.

  3. Squeeze the softened vegetables to extract their juice.

  4. Add the extracted juice to the broth.

  5. Strain the mixture.

  6. Transfer it to an earthen vessel and leave overnight.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the fat from the top.

  2. Reheat the stock in a stewpan.

  3. Skim off any scum that rises while heating.

  4. Season with white pepper, salt, and mace before serving.

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. Celery + carrottop 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. Thyme + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Celery + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the main meat flavor and body in the broth as it simmers.
Mutton
Adds rich, savory meat flavor to the stock.
Ham
Contributes salty, smoky meat flavor to the broth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the stock once softened and squeezed.
Onions or leeks
Contribute savory, aromatic depth to the stock.

The step that matters

Skim off any scum that rises while heating.. Proteins and impurities coagulate and rise to the surface as the stock heats. Skimming them off keeps the broth clear and prevents a muddy, bitter taste.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Thymethe original
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Pepperfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, mutton, celery, onion, carrot, turnip. 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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