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Broths, Gravies, and Soups

A hearty beef broth made with gravy beef, cow heel, roots, herbs, butter, flour, wine, lemon, and optional bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Broths, Gravies, and Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef and cow heel into pieces.

Make the broth

  1. In a pot, melt the butter and add the flour to make a roux.

  2. Gradually add water to the roux, stirring to avoid lumps.

  3. Add the beef, cow heel, roots, and herbs.

  4. Simmer for 1-2 hours until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Add wine and juice of half a lemon before serving.

  2. Season with bacon if desired.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Gravy beef
Breaks down during simmering to give the broth body and savory meaty flavor.
Cow heel
Releases gelatin into the liquid, giving the broth a richer, silkier body.
Butter
Fat that forms the roux with flour and carries flavor through the broth.
Flour
Thickens the liquid when cooked with butter into a roux, helping prevent lumps.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the finished broth.

The step that matters

Adding the water to the roux. Adding liquid gradually while stirring keeps the starch dispersed, so the roux blends smoothly instead of forming lumps that are hard to remove.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, flour, wine):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Grapefits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, flour, wine. 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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