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Brown Gravy Soup

A hearty soup made from beef, ham, vegetables, and spices, simmered slowly and served with ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Brown Gravy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Cut a small portion of the beef into thick pieces and brown it with sliced onions in a little butter in a stewpan.

  2. Add the shank of ham and cover the meat with cold water.

  3. Simmer for at least 3 hours without boiling.

  4. When nearing a boil, check with cold water and skim off any foam.

Make the soup

  1. Add 3 quarts of warm water, black pepper, allspice, coarse sea salt, sweet herbs, cloves, shallots, carrots, turnips, and celery.

  2. Boil slowly until the meat is tender and falls apart.

Strain, chill and serve

  1. Strain the soup.

  2. Let it sit overnight, then remove the fat.

  3. Reheat the soup an hour before serving.

  4. Season with mushroom or walnut ketchup.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Allspice + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together386 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Gravy beef
Breaks down during long simmering to give the soup its meaty body and flavour.
Onions
Browning them in butter adds sweetness and deep color to the broth.
Shank of ham
Adds savory, salty depth to the long-simmered stock.
Carrots
Release natural sugars during simmering, adding gentle sweetness and body.
Celery
Contributes aromatic, savory flavour as it simmers into the broth.

The step that matters

Skim off foam near the boil. Foam contains coagulated proteins and impurities that cloud the broth and taste bitter if left in. Skimming as it nears a boil keeps the soup clear and clean-flavoured.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, ham, pepper, allspice, clove, shallot):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, ham, pepper, allspice, clove, shallot. 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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