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Another Receipt Eor Gravy- Soup

A beef soup made with bouillon, onions, flour, butter, soy sauce, sherry, and cayenne pepper, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Another Receipt Eor Gravy- Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. In a deep stewpan, combine the beef, onions, carrots, and bouillon.

  2. Set over high heat until the broth reduces, then lower the heat and simmer until it forms a glaze at the bottom.

  3. Add the appropriate amount of water and continue cooking.

Brown and stew the beef

  1. Dredge the beef with flour, season with pepper and salt, and fry until browned.

  2. Stew the beef for six hours with 1 pint of water for each pound of meat and the fried onions.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the soup and remove excess fat.

  2. In a bowl, mix the butter and flour until smooth, then add to the soup.

  3. After 20 minutes, stir in the soy sauce, sherry, and cayenne pepper before serving.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main meat flavour and body as it stews slowly into the broth.
Flour
Thickens the soup, giving it a smooth, body-rich texture when mixed with butter.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and smooths the thickened soup.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth to the broth as they cook down.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Glaze the broth before adding water. Reducing the broth until it forms a glaze concentrates the meat and vegetable flavours. Adding water too early dilutes this base, leaving the soup weaker in flavour.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, pepper, meat, butter, sauce, sherry):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, pepper, meat, butter, sauce, sherry. 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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