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Cheap, Clear Gravy-soup

A clear beef broth made by simmering beef with spices and vegetables for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Cheap, Clear Gravy-soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the beef into even pieces and place in a large pot.

  2. Pour in 3 quarts of cold water and bring to a boil, skimming off any foam.

  3. Add salt, peppercorns, cloves, mace, savory herbs, carrots, celery, and onion if using.

  4. Reduce heat and simmer gently for 4 hours, skimming occasionally.

  5. Check the beef for tenderness; it should be very soft when done.

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. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the meat flavor and gelatin that gives the broth body as it simmers.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the broth and draws out flavor from the beef and vegetables.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth.
Celery heart
Adds a savory, aromatic background to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam and simmering gently. Bringing the water to a rolling boil breaks up proteins and fat into cloudy foam that mixes back into the liquid. Skimming while the heat is low and gentle keeps the broth clear.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, clove, mace, carrot, celery):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, clove, mace, 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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