Skip to main content
Main

Clear Gravy Soup

A clear broth made from ham, beef, veal, vegetables, and spices, simmered for hours and strained for clarity.

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

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 Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

  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 pot.

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

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

  5. Turn the meat and brown it until a glaze forms at the bottom.

Simmer

  1. Cover the meat with hot water and bring to a boil.

  2. Add ½ pint of cold water, skim off the scum, and repeat until no more scum rises.

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

Strain and clarify

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

  2. Let it cool, then remove the fat from the top.

  3. Decant carefully to avoid disturbing the sediment.

  4. If the broth is not clear, beat 2 egg whites and their shells, add to the broth, and bring to a boil while stirring.

  5. Let it settle for 10 minutes, then strain again through a fine cloth.

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. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Browning builds deep meaty flavor, and the meat gives the broth its savory body.
Veal
Its connective tissue releases gelatin, giving the finished broth a fuller, silkier body.
Bones
Breaking them exposes marrow and collagen, which release gelatin and enrich the broth's body.
Ham
Cured pork adds a salty, savory depth to the broth's overall flavor.
Egg whites (in the method)
As they coagulate, they trap suspended particles so they can be strained out, clarifying the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer gently, never boil hard. A vigorous boil churns fat and fine particles into the liquid, clouding the broth. Gentle simmering lets scum and fat rise to be skimmed, keeping the broth clear.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, beef, veal, meat, onion, carrot, celery):

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Turnipthe original
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, beef, veal, meat, onion, 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.

You might also like

Beef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipes