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Cheap, Clear Gravy Soup

A clear beef broth made by simmering shin or leg of beef with spices and aromatics.

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 broth

  1. Ask the butcher to cut 5-6 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. Slowly bring to a boil, skimming off any foam.

  4. Add 1½ ounces of coarse sea salt, ½ teaspoon black peppercorns, 8 cloves, 2 blades of mace, a bunch of savory herbs, 2 small carrots, and the heart of a celery root.

  5. Optionally, add 1 mild onion.

  6. Simmer gently for 4 hours.

  7. Check the beef for tenderness.

  8. Remove the beef when tender.

  9. Continue simmering the soup for 2-3 hours.

Clarify and season

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

  2. Let the soup cool.

  3. Remove any fat from the surface.

  4. Heat the strained soup.

  5. When boiling, 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 shin or leg
Breaks down into gelatin during long simmering, giving the broth body and mouthfeel.
Cold water
Extracts flavor and gelatin slowly from the beef as it heats gradually.
Celery root
Adds a mild, savory aromatic background to the broth.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth.
Sugar
Adds a small amount of sweetness to balance the savory broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam as the water comes to a boil. Foam carries denatured proteins and impurities that cloud the broth if left to recombine. Removing it early, and keeping the simmer gentle, helps the broth stay clear.

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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