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Gravy Soup

A hearty broth made from beef, veal, ham, and vegetables, simmered for hours to produce a flavorful base for gravies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Gravy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Brown the beef, veal, and ham in the butter without burning them.

  2. Pour in the boiling water and add salt; skim off any scum that rises.

  3. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer slowly for 6 hours without stirring.

Strain and finish

  1. Remove from heat and strain through a sieve.

  2. Once cooled, remove all the fat, leaving the sediment for thick gravies.

  3. Flavor the soup when reheating for 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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

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

  5. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 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

Shin of beef
Releases gelatin and savory flavor into the broth during long, slow simmering.
Knuckle of veal
Adds gelatin and body, giving the finished broth a richer mouthfeel.
Butter
Carries the browning of the meat and ham, building deeper roasted flavor.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they cook down into the stock.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and rounded flavor to the broth.
Celery
Adds aromatic, herbal savoriness that supports the broth's overall flavor.

The step that matters

Brown the beef, veal, and ham without burning them. Gentle browning develops roasted, savory flavors through the Maillard reaction. Burnt pieces turn bitter and carry that bitterness through the whole long simmer.

Swap the turnip

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

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

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