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Gravy Soup

A hearty soup made with ham, beef, vegetables, peas, and seasonings, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Gravy Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a large stewpan, layer the sliced ham at the bottom.

  2. Add the beef and veal, breaking the bones and placing them on the meat.

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

  4. Cover the stewpan and set it over medium heat.

  5. When the meat begins to stick, turn it until a brown glaze forms.

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

  7. Add ½ pint of cold water, skim off the scum, and repeat with another ½ pint.

  8. Let it boil gently for about 4 hours.

  9. Strain the soup through a clean cloth into another pot without squeezing.

  10. Let it cool, then remove the fat carefully.

Make the pea purée

  1. In a separate pot, boil the peas with butter and parsley over low heat until tender.

  2. Mash the peas, rub through a sieve, and moisten with good consomme.

Serve

  1. Keep warm without boiling to maintain the color.

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 the meaty flavor and body of the broth as it simmers.
Ham
Adds salty, savory depth to the broth as it cooks.
Green peas
Mashed and sieved, they thicken and give the soup its smooth, green body.
Onions
Release sweetness and aromatic depth into the long-simmered broth.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the pea purée.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum and keeping the broth at a gentle boil. Skimming removes coagulated proteins and impurities that would cloud the broth. A gentle simmer keeps the broth clear, while a hard boil emulsifies fat into it and makes the soup cloudy.

Swap the mace

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

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

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