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Sauces Axd Gravies

A savory gravy made with bacon or ham or butter, herbs, onion, allspice, and bread crust, flavored with mushroom ketchup, port wine, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and winter savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 455 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Sauces Axd Gravies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. In a 2-quart saucepan, place the bacon, ham, or butter at the bottom.

  2. Add the mace, marjoram, savory or lemon thyme, parsley, lemon peel, cloves stuck in the onion, allspice, and black pepper.

  3. Pour in 3 tablespoons of water, cover, and cook on low heat until the liquid evaporates and the meat is browned, but not burnt.

  4. After a few minutes, uncover and watch closely; when browned, add 1 quart of boiling water.

Simmer and finish

  1. Skim off any scum, then add the toasted bread crust and let it simmer gently for 1.5 hours.

  2. Gradually stir in thickening (as per recipe No. 237) and simmer for an additional 15 minutes.

  3. Strain through a fine sieve or cloth, then stir in mushroom ketchup, salt, and pepper.

  4. For added flavor, mix in port wine, lemon juice, and lemon rind if desired.

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. Marjoram + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together455 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  4. Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

  5. Winter savory + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together863 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bacon or ham or butter
Provides fat and browned meaty flavor to the base of the gravy.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth as it cooks in the base.
Toasted bread crust
Adds toasted, roasted flavor and body to the simmering liquid.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savory, umami flavor to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Browning the meat without burning it. Gentle browning in the fat builds the gravy's color and savory flavor through the Maillard reaction. If the pan gets too hot or is left unattended, the meat and fond scorch, leaving bitter notes that carry into the whole gravy.

“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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