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Ragouts, Gravy for All Kinds of

A hearty ragout gravy made with ham, veal, vegetables, herbs, and water, simmered slowly and strained for use.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme 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 ↓

Ragouts, Gravy for All Kinds of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the veal into 6-8 pieces.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the meat and ½ pint of water.

  3. Bring to a boil, then simmer gently for 30 minutes until nearly evaporated.

Make the gravy

  1. Add the onion, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, mace, carrot, celery (or celery seed), pepper, and salt.

  2. Pour in 3 pints of boiling water and bring to a boil again.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer gently without a lid for 2 hours.

  4. Strain the liquid and set aside for use.

Serve

  1. The meat can be potted or served with a sauce.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Thyme + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 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

Veal
Breaks down during long simmering, releasing gelatin and flavour into the liquid to give body.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aromatic depth to the simmering liquid.
Carrot
Contributes gentle sweetness and body to the broth as it cooks.
Celery
Adds aromatic, herbal savouriness that rounds out the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer gently without a lid. A gentle simmer keeps the broth clear, while a hard boil makes it cloudy and emulsifies fat into it. Leaving the lid off lets the liquid reduce and concentrate the flavour.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, veal, onion, clove, parsley, thyme, carrot):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, onion, clove, parsley, thyme, carrot. 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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