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Cheap Gravy for Minced Veal

A veal gravy made from bones, water, onion, lemon peel, salt, mace, lemon juice, thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,078 recipes. Both carry eugenol, which smells clove, spicy. The science ↓

Cheap Gravy for Minced Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Put all the ingredients into a stewpan, except the thickening and lemon-juice.

  2. Let them simmer very gently for rather more than 1 hour, or until the liquor is reduced to a pint.

  3. When the liquor is reduced, strain through a hair-sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Add a thickening of butter and flour, and the lemon-juice.

  2. Set it on the fire, and let it just boil up.

  3. Optionally add tomato sauce, ketchup, or Harvey's sauce to flavor.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

56Calories
2 gProtein
0 gFat
14 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 5 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  2. Lemon + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,315 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Lemon + oniontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Onion
Adds savoury flavour to the simmered liquor.
Butter and flour (in the method)
Thickens the strained liquor into a smooth gravy.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the gravy's flavour.

The step that matters

Let the boil-up be brief. Flour thickening sets as it heats and can turn lumpy or pasty if it is stirred poorly or boiled too long. Bring it just to a boil so the starch thickens smoothly and the lemon flavour stays fresh.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, mace):

  1. Applefits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, mace. 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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