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Another Clear Gravy Soup

A clear soup made from ham, beef, veal, onions, turnips, carrots, celery, cloves, mace, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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 ↓

Another Clear Gravy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pot

  1. In a large stewpan or soup pot, layer the ham, beef, and veal.

  2. Break the bones and add them to the pot.

  3. Add the onions, turnips, carrots, celery, cloves, and mace.

  4. Cover the pot and heat over a good fire until the meat sticks to the bottom.

Simmer and skim

  1. Once a brown glaze appears, cover the meat with hot water.

  2. When it nears boiling, add ½ pint of cold water and remove the scum.

  3. Repeat adding cold water and skimming until no more scum rises.

  4. Reduce heat and let it simmer gently for about 4 hours.

Strain and clarify

  1. Strain the broth through a fine cloth into a stone pan without squeezing.

  2. Let it cool, then remove the fat and decant the clear liquid without disturbing the sediment.

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. Turnip + carrottop 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. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Browns and releases savory flavor and body into the broth during long simmering.
Veal
Adds gelatin from bones and connective tissue, giving the broth body and a silky mouthfeel.
Ham
Contributes salty, smoky depth to the broth as it simmers.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they cook down into the broth.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and rounded flavor to the stock.
Celery
Adds aromatic, vegetal background flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise when the liquid nears boiling. Removing it as it forms keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting; letting it boil in would cloud the soup.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

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