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Clear Gravy Soup

A clear broth made with ham, beef, veal, and vegetables, simmered for hours and strained to remove fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 the pot

  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.

Make the broth

  1. Cover the pot and heat over medium-high until the meat begins to stick.

  2. When a brown glaze forms, cover the meat with hot water.

  3. When it approaches a boil, add ½ pint of cold water and skim off the scum.

  4. Repeat adding ½ pint of cold water and skimming until no more scum rises.

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

Clarify and strain

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

  2. Let it cool, then remove the fat.

  3. If not clear, beat 2 egg whites and shells, add to the soup, and heat while stirring until it boils.

  4. Let it settle for 10 minutes, then strain again into a basin.

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. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides meaty flavor and gelatin as it simmers, giving the broth body.
Veal
Adds gelatin from its bones and connective tissue, giving the broth a fuller body.
Onions
Release sweetness and aromatic depth into the broth during the long simmer.
Carrots
Contribute gentle sweetness and color to the finished broth.
Egg whites (in the method)
Trap fine particles as they coagulate, clarifying the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the liquid heats. Removing it as it forms keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting; if left, it cooks back into the liquid and clouds it.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

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

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