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Gravy, Jelly for

A savory gravy made from beef shin, veal knuckle, ham, herbs, and spices simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Gravy, Jelly for

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat into small pieces and break the bones to remove the marrow.

  2. Add the herbs, carrot, mace, peppercorns, lemon rind, cayenne, sugar, and salt.

Simmer

  1. Pour in the water or veal broth and let the mixture simmer gently for 6 hours, removing the scum as it rises.

Strain and store

  1. Strain the gravy.

  2. Store the gravy in a cool place.

  3. Boil for 1-2 minutes every 2-3 days if keeping for a while.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Carrot + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 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

Shin of beef
Its connective tissue breaks down into gelatin during long simmering, giving the gravy body.
Knuckle of veal
Bones and connective tissue release gelatin, adding richness and a silky body to the gravy.
Lean uncooked ham
Adds savoury, salty depth to the flavour of the gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer gently and skim the scum. A gentle simmer lets collagen slowly convert to gelatin while keeping the liquid clear. A hard boil churns fat and impurities into the liquid, making the gravy cloudy and greasy. Removing the scum as it rises keeps the finished gravy clean-tasting.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, ham, carrot, lemon, pepper, sugar):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, ham, carrot, lemon, pepper, sugar. 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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