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Veal, Gravy for

A veal gravy made by simmering veal bones with herbs, thickened with flour and butter, and finished with sugar and optional cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Veal, Gravy for

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Break large bones into small pieces and place them in a saucepan.

  2. Cover the bones with 1 quart of cold water.

  3. Add parsley, thyme or marjoram, lemon rind, mace, pepper, and bacon rind if available.

  4. Cover the saucepan and simmer gently until the liquid is strong and flavorful.

  5. Strain the liquid into a bowl and let it cool to remove the fat from the top.

Thicken and finish

  1. To thicken, mix 2 tablespoons of flour with a little cold water and butter, then boil with the stock.

  2. Add sugar-browning if desired.

  3. Pour the fat from the pan under the veal, leaving the brown gravy.

  4. Stir the sauce into the pan, dissolve a small lump of sugar, and add salt.

  5. Boil once more and serve very hot, adding boiling cream if liked.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bones and trimmings of veal
Release gelatin and meaty flavor into the water as they simmer, giving the stock body.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a gravy when boiled with the liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded flavor to the thickened gravy.
Sugar-browning
Darkens the gravy's color for a more appetizing brown appearance.
Boiling cream
Adds richness and softens the gravy's flavor when stirred in at serving.

The step that matters

Cooling and skimming the strained stock. Fat floats on cooled stock and solidifies, so it can be lifted off cleanly. Skipping this leaves a greasy gravy, since fat that stays in the liquid separates and coats the mouth when served.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, parsley, thyme, lemon, pepper, flour, butter. 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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