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Clear, Pale Gravy Soup or Consomme

A clear soup made from ham, veal, and beef with vegetables and seasonings, served with fried bread sippets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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, Pale Gravy Soup or Consomme

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub a deep stewpan or soup pot with butter.

  2. Add the ham, veal, and beef, and cook over medium heat until browned, stirring frequently.

  3. Add the bones.

  4. Pour in the boiling water gradually.

  5. Skim off any scum that rises.

  6. Add a pint of cold water to help clear it.

  7. Add the salt, onions, carrots, turnips, celery, herbs, cloves, white pepper, and mace.

Simmer and strain

  1. Let the soup simmer gently for 5.5 to 6.5 hours.

  2. Strain the soup through a fine cloth in a sieve.

  3. Remove any fat from the surface.

  4. Leave the sediment undisturbed.

Serve

  1. Reheat the desired amount in a clean pan.

  2. Add salt and vinegar or sauce to taste.

  3. Serve with fried bread sippets.

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. Carrot + turniptop 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

Veal leg or neck
Gives body and rich savory flavor to the broth as it simmers.
Lean beef
Contributes meaty flavor and gelatin-rich body to the clarified broth.
Ham
Adds smoky, salty depth to the overall flavor of the consommé.

The step that matters

Skimming and leaving the sediment undisturbed. Scum that rises early can cloud the broth, and stirring up sediment when straining or reheating makes it cloudy. Gentle simmering and careful skimming keep the liquid clear.

Swap the clove

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

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

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

More consommé recipes

Chicken 21Veal 18Soup 15Vegetable 11Rice 8Custard 7 See all 50 →

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