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Gravy for Hashes, Cheap

A savory gravy made from meat bones, spices, and onions, served with hash.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Gravy for Hashes, Cheap

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Cut the bones and trimmings into small pieces and place them in a saucepan.

  2. Add enough cold water to cover the meat, then add allspice, peppercorns, celery seed in muslin, savory herbs, salt, and toasted bread.

  3. Cover and simmer gently for 1 hour.

Thicken and finish

  1. In another saucepan, heat butter and add sliced onion, cooking until browned.

  2. Mix in enough flour to make a stiff batter, then gradually add the gravy from the bones.

  3. Boil gently for a few minutes to remove the raw flour taste, then strain through a coarse sieve.

  4. Heat the gravy for the hash without boiling it.

  5. For extra flavor, add ketchup, Harvey's sauce, or pickles 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. Celery + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

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

  2. Allspice + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

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

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Allspice + walnuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Bones and trimmings of meat
Provide the main flavor and body for the gravy as they simmer in water.
Flour
Thickens the gravy by swelling with liquid as it cooks.
Toasted bread
Adds browned, toasty flavor and some body to the stock.
Onion
Browns in butter to add sweetness and savory depth.
Butter
Carries the onion's browning and adds richness to the gravy.

The step that matters

Boil gently for a few minutes. Flour must be cooked long enough to remove its raw, pasty taste, but boiling too hard can break down the thickened gravy and cause lumps or scorching. A gentle boil cooks the starch smoothly.

Swap the walnut

The recipe marks walnut as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, allspice, celery, bread, onion, butter, flour):

  1. Beansfits about as well
  2. Almondfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, allspice, celery, bread, onion, butter, flour. 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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