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Gravy with Ham

A savory ham gravy made by browning ham and aromatics in butter, then simmering with stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,768 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Gravy with Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the ham

  1. In a small saucepan, slowly brown the diced ham in butter over low heat.

  2. Add the mace, cloves, bay leaf, savory herbs, eschalots, and parsley root.

Make the gravy

  1. Gradually add the mixture to beef stock or broth after it has simmered for 30 minutes.

  2. Boil the mixture for 20 minutes, ensuring the pan is colored a reddish brown.

  3. If thickening is needed, stir in flour and simmer for 3-4 minutes before adding stock.

  4. Shake the pan often to detach the browning while the ham is stewing.

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. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Diced ham
Provides the savoury, meaty flavour and the browned colour of the gravy.
Butter
Carries flavour in the pan and helps the ham brown evenly over low heat.
Eschalots
Adds a mild, sweet aromatic base that deepens the gravy's flavour.
Beef stock or broth
Forms the liquid base that gives the gravy its body and savoury depth.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as its starch swells in the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Browning the ham slowly. Browning over low heat develops colour and flavour through the Maillard reaction and caramelisation without scorching the butter. Shaking the pan loosens the browned residue so it dissolves into the stock, which is where the gravy's reddish-brown colour comes from.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, butter, clove, onion, parsley, flour, beef):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, clove, onion, parsley, flour, beef. 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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