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Beef with Dill Pickle Gravy

A beef shoulder simmered in a dill pickle gravy made with sour cream and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and dill share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 52 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Beef with Dill Pickle Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. In a pot, cover the beef with water.

  2. Add allspice, peppercorns, bay leaves, onion, and salt.

  3. Simmer until the meat is tender.

  4. Remove the meat and set aside.

Make the gravy

  1. In a bowl, mix sour cream with flour until smooth.

  2. Stir the mixture into the stock and boil for a few minutes.

  3. Strain the gravy and pour it over the meat 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. Allspice + dilltop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together52 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Dill + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together659 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + dilltop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,639 recipes

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

  5. Allspice + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 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

Beef shoulder
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender and flavourful during long simmering.
Sour cream
Adds richness and a tangy body to the gravy.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the sour cream mixture and stock into a smooth gravy.
Dill pickles
Contribute sourness and dill flavour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Stir the sour cream and flour mixture into the stock smoothly. Flour mixed into sour cream must be fully smooth before it goes into hot stock, otherwise it can clump and leave lumps in the gravy. Boiling briefly after adding it helps the flour starch swell and thicken the sauce.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, dill, vinegar, cream, flour):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, dill, vinegar, cream, 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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