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Cheap, Clear Gravy Soup

A clear beef soup made by simmering shin leg of beef with herbs, spices, and vegetables, then seasoned with sugar, soy sauce, and mushroom ketchup.

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 ↓

Cheap, Clear Gravy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Ask the butcher to cut 5 to 6 pounds of shin or leg of beef into even pieces.

  2. Place the beef in a pot and add 3 quarts of cold water.

  3. Bring the water to a boil slowly, skimming off any foam.

Simmer the soup

  1. Add 1½ ounces of coarse sea salt, ½ teaspoon of black peppercorns, 8 cloves, 2 blades of mace, savory herbs, chopped carrots, chopped celery, and the optional onion.

  2. Simmer the mixture gently for 4 hours, then check the beef for tenderness.

  3. Remove the beef when tender and continue simmering the soup for an additional 2 to 3 hours.

Strain, chill and season

  1. Strain the soup through a fine sieve into a clean pot.

  2. Let the soup cool completely and remove any fat.

  3. Heat 2 quarts of the strained soup, then stir in ½ ounce of sugar, 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, and 2 tablespoons of mushroom ketchup or Harvey's sauce.

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. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Slow simmering breaks down connective tissue, giving the broth body and rich flavour.
Carrots
Release natural sweetness and aromatic depth into the broth as they simmer.
Celery
Adds savoury, vegetal aroma that rounds out the broth's flavour.
Soy sauce
Adds savoury depth and umami to the finished soup.
Mushroom ketchup or harvey's sauce
Adds concentrated savoury, tangy umami that deepens the broth's flavour.

The step that matters

Bring the water to a boil slowly, skimming off any foam. Heating gently lets proteins and impurities rise as foam that can be skimmed away, keeping the broth clear and clean-tasting. Boiling hard would emulsify fat and cloud the soup.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, clove, mace, carrot, celery, sugar, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, clove, mace, carrot, celery, sugar, sauce. 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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