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Gravy, Colouring and Flavouring

A savory ham gravy made with butter, ham, shallot, herbs, cloves, stock, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Gravy, Colouring and Flavouring

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter over low heat in a saucepan.

  2. Add the chopped ham, minced shallot, thyme, parsley, and cloves.

  3. Cover and stew slowly for 30 minutes, shaking the pan occasionally.

  4. Once browned, add the stock and boil for another 30 minutes.

  5. If needed, thicken with flour.

  6. Add salt and pepper.

  7. Strain 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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the gravy with fat and carries the flavour of the ham and aromatics.
Ham
Releases savoury, salty flavour into the butter as it stews.
Shallot
Adds a mild, sweet onion-like aroma that deepens as it cooks.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the gravy, giving body and savoury depth.
Flour
Thickens the stock so the gravy coats the back of a spoon.

The step that matters

Stew slowly over low heat. Gentle, covered heat draws flavour from the ham and shallot without scorching the butter. Browning too hard can turn the gravy bitter, so the pan needs watching.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, ham, shallot, thyme, parsley, flour, pepper):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, ham, shallot, thyme, parsley, flour, pepper. 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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