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Gravy for Fowls, Cheap

A simple gravy made with diced ham, butter, stock, peppercorns, parsley, bay leaf, and toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Gravy for Fowls, Cheap

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Fry the diced ham in butter until browned.

  2. Gradually pour in the stock.

  3. Add the peppercorns, parsley, bay leaf, and toasted bread.

  4. Simmer gently for 45 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the gravy and add salt if needed.

  2. 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.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Parsley + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

  5. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean ham
Browns in butter to add savoury, meaty flavour to the gravy base.
Butter
Fat that carries the ham's flavour and helps it brown.
Stock
Forms the liquid body of the gravy.
Toasted bread
Thickens the gravy slightly and adds a toasted, nutty note.

The step that matters

Simmering gently for 45 minutes. A hard boil can reduce the liquid too quickly and make the gravy cloudy or overly thick. A gentle simmer lets the flavours from the ham, peppercorns and herbs extract slowly and evenly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, butter, bread):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, bread. 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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