Name: Gravy, Beef, for Poultry and Game
Ingredients: 1 pound coarse beef, cut into small pieces; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ⅛ teaspoon black pepper; 1 shallot, chopped; 2 cups cold water; 1 tablespoon mushroom ketchup; 1 teaspoon arrowroot; a little cold water

Why it works: Shallot and arrowroot share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Gravy, Beef, for Poultry and Game

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

Place the beef, salt, pepper, shallot, and cold water in a saucepan.
Simmer gently for 2.5 hours.
Strain the mixture.

Finish and serve

Add mushroom ketchup and thicken with arrowroot mixed with a little cold water.
Boil once more and serve hot.

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.

Shallot + arrowroottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together15 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,982 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,232 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,580 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef: Releases its flavour and body into the cold water during slow simmering, giving the gravy its base.
Arrowroot: Thickens the liquid into a glossy gravy when heated, without adding much flavour.
Mushroom ketchup: Adds savoury, umami depth to the gravy.
Shallot: Adds mild aromatic sweetness that flavours the stock as it simmers.

The step that matters

Thicken with arrowroot slurry. Arrowroot must be mixed with cold water first and stirred into hot liquid, because adding it dry causes lumps. It thickens when it heats and should not be boiled for long, since prolonged boiling can thin the starch.

Swap the arrowroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, shallot, mushroom, ketchup):

Capsicumfits better
Chivefits better
Leekfits better
Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, shallot, mushroom, ketchup. 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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Gravy, Beef, for Poultry and Game