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Gravy From Roast Beef

A simple gravy made from pan fat, flour, boiling water, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Gravy From Roast Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Make the roux

  1. Leave 4 teaspoons of fat in the pan.

  2. Add 4 tablespoons of flour and stir until well browned.

Thicken and finish

  1. Gradually add 1½ cups of boiling water.

  2. Cook for 5 minutes, then season with salt and pepper.

  3. Strain the gravy before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Fat
Carries the pan flavor and coats the flour so it forms a smooth roux.
Flour
Its starch swells in the liquid and thickens the gravy.
Boiling water
Forms the liquid that the flour's starch thickens into a pourable sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually add the boiling water. Flour starch clumps when it hits liquid all at once. Adding the water a little at a time while stirring disperses the starch granules evenly, so they swell into a smooth gravy instead of lumps.

“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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