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Clear Gravy Soup

A clear soup made with beef, ham, onions, herbs, carrots, sugar, pepper, and water, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Clear Gravy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Place the beef and ham in a kettle.

  2. Add a small amount of water and bring to a simmer.

  3. Incorporate onions, sweet herbs, carrots, sugar, and whole pepper.

  4. Fill the kettle with boiling water and skim the surface.

  5. Stew gently for 10 hours.

Strain and finish

  1. Ladle out the soup carefully to avoid disturbing the sediment.

  2. Store the remaining soup and meat in a separate pan.

  3. Once cooled, remove the fat carefully.

  4. Reheat the soup with thinly cut carrots, asparagus, or vermicelli as desired.

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 + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of beef
Releases flavour and gelatin into the broth during long, gentle stewing.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty depth to the broth over the long stew.
Carrots
Contribute sweetness and aroma to the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Ladle out the soup carefully to avoid disturbing the sediment.. Sediment settles during the long stew. Stirring or rough pouring lifts it back into the liquid, clouding the broth and spoiling the clear result the recipe aims for.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, ham, carrot, sugar, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, carrot, sugar, pepper. 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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