Skip to main content
Main

Another Receipt for Gravy- Soup

A hearty beef soup thickened with flour and butter, flavored with onions, bouillon, soy sauce, sherry, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 for Gravy- Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

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

Make the broth

  1. Combine the beef, onions, carrots, and bouillon in a deep stewpan.

  2. Set over high heat until the broth reduces.

  3. Lower the heat and simmer until a glaze forms at the bottom.

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

  5. Stew the beef for six hours with 1 pint of water for each pound of meat and the desired vegetables.

  6. Add the fried onions to the soup for every three quarts.

  7. Strain the soup.

  8. Remove excess fat.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a bowl, mix the butter and flour until smooth.

  2. Add the butter‑flour mixture to the soup.

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

  4. Serve hot.

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 meaty flavor and body as it stews into the broth.
Flour
Browns the beef when dredged and thickens the soup as a butter roux.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the flour thicken smoothly.
Onions
Add sweetness and depth to the broth as they cook down.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma to finish the soup.
Bouillon
Builds the savory base of the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the butter-flour mixture. If the butter and flour are not mixed smooth before going into the hot soup, lumps form and the flour cannot thicken evenly. Whisking it into a smooth paste first lets the starch disperse and thicken the broth uniformly.

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.

More gravy soup recipes

Beef 28Clear 24Brown 10Veal 3 See all 46 →

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes