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Clear, Pale Gravy Soup or Consommé

A clear, pale soup made by simmering ham, veal, beef, and vegetables in water, then strained and fat removed.

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 ↓

Clear, Pale Gravy Soup or Consommé

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub a deep stewpan or soup pot with butter.

  2. Add the ham, veal, and beef, and cook over medium heat until browned.

  3. Add the bones and gradually pour in the boiling water.

Simmer and skim

  1. Skim off the scum as it rises. Add a pint of cold water to help.

  2. Once the scum stops appearing, add salt, onions, carrots, turnips, celery, herbs, cloves, pepper, and mace.

  3. Let the soup simmer gently for 5.5 to 6.5 hours.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain the soup through a fine cloth in a sieve.

  2. Once cold, remove the fat from the top.

  3. Heat the required amount for serving.

  4. Add salt if needed. Add a few drops of chili or cayenne vinegar.

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. 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

Veal
Breaks down during long simmering to give the stock body and savory depth.
Lean beef
Releases flavor and gelatin into the stock during long simmering, adding richness.
Ham
Contributes savory, salty flavor to the stock as it simmers.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock as they cook slowly.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and color to the clear stock.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum as it rises. Scum is coagulated protein and fat that cloud the broth if left to mix back in. Skimming early and steadily keeps the stock clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the clove

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

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

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