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Gravy Soup

A hearty beef soup made with stock, vegetables, herbs, and thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Gravy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat into small pieces.

  2. Heat the butter or fat in a stewpan, then add the meat and sliced vegetables, frying until brown.

Simmer and strain

  1. Add the stock, herbs, peppercorns, cloves, and seasoning, and cook gently for about 2.5 hours.

  2. Strain the soup and return it to the saucepan.

Thicken and serve

  1. Boil the soup, mix the flour smoothly with a little cold stock, and pour it into the soup.

  2. Simmer for a few minutes longer, adjust seasoning to taste, and serve.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Neck or shin of beef
Breaks down into gelatin and flavour during long gentle cooking, giving body to the soup.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour and makes up most of the soup.
Butter or fat
Carries the frying heat and helps brown the meat and vegetables, adding savoury flavour.
Flour
Thickens the soup when mixed smoothly with cold stock and heated, giving it a fuller texture.
Onion
Browns in the fat and adds sweetness and savoury depth to the stock.

The step that matters

Mix the flour smoothly with cold stock before adding. Flour added dry or to hot liquid clumps, because starch grains coat and swell unevenly. Mixing it into cold stock first lets each grain separate, so it thickens the soup evenly once boiled.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, onion, celery, parsley, thyme, butter):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, onion, celery, parsley, thyme, butter. 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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