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Clear Gravy Soups

A clear broth made from ham, beef, veal, and vegetables, clarified with egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 Gravy Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Place the ham slices at the bottom of a large stew-pan or stock-pot with the beef and veal.

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

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

  4. Cover the pan and heat over medium-high until the meat sticks to the bottom.

  5. When a brown glaze forms, cover the meat with hot water.

  6. Add ½ pint of cold water.

  7. Skim off the scum.

  8. Add ½ pint of cold water.

  9. Skim until no more scum rises.

  10. Reduce heat and simmer gently for about 4 hours.

Clarify and strain

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

  2. Let it cool.

  3. Remove the fat carefully without disturbing the sediment.

  4. Beat the egg whites and shells.

  5. Add to the soup.

  6. Heat while stirring until it boils.

  7. Let it settle for 10 minutes.

  8. Strain again into a basin.

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
Builds the rich, meaty flavour and body of the broth as it simmers.
Veal
Adds gelatin from its bones and connective tissue, giving the broth body.
Ham
Contributes savoury, salty depth to the stock.
Egg whites and shells
Coagulate as they heat, trapping sediment so the broth clears.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they cook down into the stock.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the liquid heats. Removing it while the stock is simmering keeps the broth clean-tasting and clearer. Skim before the liquid reaches a rolling boil so impurities don't break up and cloud the stock.

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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