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A Cheap Gravit for Hashes, &C.

A simple gravy made from bones, trimmings, salt, pepper, allspice, herbs, celery, onion, butter, and thickening.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

A Cheap Gravit for Hashes, &C.

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Chop the bones into small pieces and place them in a stewpan with the trimmings, salt, pepper, allspice, herbs, and celery.

  2. Cover with boiling water and let simmer gently for 1½ to 2 hours.

Finish the gravy

  1. Slice and fry the onion in the butter until pale brown.

  2. Gradually mix the fried onion with the gravy from the bones.

  3. Boil for 30 minutes.

  4. Strain the gravy into a basin.

  5. Return the strained gravy to the stewpan.

  6. Flavor with walnut pickle or ketchup.

  7. Thicken with a mixture of butter and flour kneaded together on a plate.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Bones and trimmings
Release gelatin and savory flavor into the liquid as they simmer, giving the gravy body.
Onion
Browning and sweetness from frying until pale brown, adding depth to the gravy.
Butter
Carries flavor when frying the onion and, kneaded with flour, helps thicken the gravy.
Flour
Starch that thickens the gravy when kneaded with butter and stirred in.

The step that matters

Thicken with butter and flour. Flour must be cooked into the butter and liquid, or the gravy tastes raw and floury. Adding it as a smooth paste, rather than in lumps, lets it thicken evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, allspice, celery, butter, flour):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, allspice, celery, butter, flour. 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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