Skip to main content
Main

Scotch Gravy Soup

A hearty soup made from a neck or clod of meat, carrots, turnips, herbs, and spices, served with celery, farce-balls, fried bread, or dry toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and celery 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 ↓

Scotch Gravy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Wash the meat thoroughly to remove blood and hang it to air out.

  2. Cut the meat into pieces and add it to the stewpan; let it sweat and prick it with a knife.

Make the soup

  1. In a stewpan, add chopped carrots, turnips, and sweet herbs.

  2. Add well-bruised bones and fill with water, using 1 quart of water for each pound of meat.

  3. Tie spices in a muslin bag and add them to the pot.

  4. Bring to a boil, skim off any foam, and then reduce to a simmer on low heat for at least 5 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup with celery, farce-balls, fried bread, or dry toast.

  2. If using boiled cow‑heel, cut it nicely and simmer in reduced stock and ketchup before adding to the soup.

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. Carrot + celerytop 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. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  5. Celery + ketchuptop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together456 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Neck or clod of meat
Provides the main body and rich flavour of the broth as it simmers.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock.
Turnips
Contribute mild sweetness and earthy flavour to the soup.
Bones (in the method)
Release gelatin and body into the water during long simmering, giving the soup richness.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam after boiling. Foam contains coagulated proteins and impurities that cloud the broth and can taste bitter if left in. Removing it before reducing to a simmer keeps the soup clear and clean-flavoured.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, carrot, celery, bread, ketchup):

  1. Turnipthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, carrot, celery, bread, ketchup. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes