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Gravy for Roast Beef

A simple gravy made from pan drippings, water or stock, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Gravy for Roast Beef

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pour the fat from the pan into a bowl.

  2. Add 1 pint of hot water or stock to the pan to dissolve the settlements.

  3. In a saucepan, heat 4 tablespoons of hot fat.

  4. Stir in 2 tablespoons of flour until well mixed.

  5. Gradually stir in the hot water or stock from the pan.

  6. Season with salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, or mushrooms to taste.

  7. Cook for 10 minutes.

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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Ketchup + mushroomtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the fat and liquid into a smooth gravy as it cooks.
Fat
Carries flavour and forms a roux with the flour for body.
Hot water or stock
Forms the liquid base that the roux thickens into gravy.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour until well mixed. Flour must be fully blended into the hot fat before liquid is added, otherwise it clumps. Cooking the roux lightly removes raw flour taste and lets starch thicken the gravy evenly.

“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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