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A Good Beef Gravy

A gravy made from lean beef, onion, salt, pepper, mushroom ketchup, and arrowroot, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

A Good Beef Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the beef into small pieces and place it in a stewpan with the cold water.

  2. Add the chopped onion, salt, and pepper.

  3. Simmer gently for three hours.

  4. Mix the arrowroot with a little cold water, then stir the mixture into the gravy.

  5. Add the mushroom ketchup or Harvey's sauce.

  6. Allow the gravy to come to a boil.

  7. Strain the gravy into a tureen.

  8. Serve hot.

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. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  5. Onion + arrowroottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together340 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the meat flavour and body of the gravy as it simmers in the water.
Arrowroot
Thickens the gravy into a smooth, glossy texture when stirred in and brought to a boil.
Onion
Adds savoury, aromatic sweetness that deepens the flavour of the broth during simmering.
Mushroom ketchup or harvey's sauce
Adds concentrated savoury depth and umami to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Thickening with arrowroot. Arrowroot must be mixed with cold water first so it disperses evenly without lumps, then it thickens when the gravy reaches a boil. Adding it dry or to hot liquid can clump it, leaving an uneven texture.

Swap the arrowroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, pepper, mushroom):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, pepper, mushroom. 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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