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Gravy Soup

A beef soup made with leftover roast gravy, onions, flour, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Gravy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Cut the shin of beef into slices, sawing through the bone.

  2. Make a stock with the meat and bones, adding vegetables and herbs.

  3. Season the stock. Mix the stock.

Make the gravy base

  1. In a stew-pan, heat the leftover gravy and fat.

  2. Brown chopped onions and flour in the hot gravy.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the soup.

  2. Bring to a boil and 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. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Beef and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 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

Shin of beef
Releases flavor and gelatin into the stock as it simmers, giving body to the soup.
Leftover roast beef or veal gravy
Adds concentrated meaty flavor and color to the soup base.
Fat
Carries flavor and helps the onions and flour brown in the pan.
Chopped onions
Browning in fat builds sweetness and savory depth in the base.
Flour
Browns with the onions and thickens the soup as it cooks.

The step that matters

Browning the onions and flour in the gravy. Cooking the flour until it turns golden develops nutty flavor and removes raw starch taste, while slow browning of onions adds sweetness. Burning them turns the soup bitter, so keep the heat moderate and stir often.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour. 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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