Name: Beef, Gravy, to Keep in Store
Ingredients: 4 to 5 pounds gravy beef, free from fat; 1 pint water; 1 carrot, sliced; 1 onion, chopped; 1 head of celery, chopped; 1 thick slice of cooked ham; 2 cloves; 3 quarts boiling water

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Beef, Gravy, to Keep in Store

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

Place the beef in a stewpan with 1 pint of water, carrot, onion, celery, ham, and cloves.
Cover the pan and stew until the water nearly evaporates, ensuring nothing burns or sticks.
Add 3 quarts of boiling water and remove from direct heat, keeping it warm enough to prevent rapid boiling.
Boil until reduced to 2 quarts, then strain through a sieve.

Finish and store

Once cold, remove the fat. This gravy can be used for game or poultry and will keep for several days.

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.

Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,873 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,668 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 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

Gravy beef: Provides the meat flavour and gelatin that give the finished stock body.
Ham: Adds salty, smoky depth to the liquid as it simmers.
Onion: Contributes sweetness and aromatic flavour as it softens in the pot.
Celery: Adds savory, vegetal aroma that rounds out the base flavour.

The step that matters

Keeping the liquid below a rapid boil. Once the boiling water is added, gentle heat keeps the liquid clear and prevents fat and fine particles from emulsifying into the stock, so the gravy stays clean and easy to skim.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, onion, celery, ham):

Parsleyfits better
Thymefits better
Marjoramfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, onion, celery, ham. 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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Beef, Gravy, to Keep in Store