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Gravy for Baked Meats

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Gravy for Baked Meats

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Remove the joint and place the pan on the fire.

  2. Skim off the floating grease and save it as dripping.

  3. Pour ½ to 1 pint of boiling water into the pan and mix well.

  4. Quickly stir in 2 or more tablespoons of blended browned flour and boil once.

  5. Season with pepper and salt, and serve.

  6. For a thicker gravy, bring stock to a boil.

  7. Mix 4 ounces of flour with cold water or stock into a smooth batter.

  8. Add the thickening to the boiling stock, stirring to prevent burning.

  9. Simmer gently for 30 minutes, adding bay leaves or mixed herbs.

  10. Remove the herbs after a few minutes.

  11. To color the gravy, caramelize 4 ounces of sugar until dark.

  12. Add 1½ pints of water to the caramel and simmer for a few minutes.

  13. Allow to cool and store in a bottle for use.

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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Pepper and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 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

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