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
Make the gravy
Cut the beef into small pieces and place it in a stewpan with the cold water.
Add the onion, salt, and pepper, then simmer gently for three hours.
Before serving, mix the arrowroot with a little cold water and pour it into the gravy while stirring.
Add the Harvey's sauce and allow it to come to a boil.
Serve
Strain into a tureen and serve very hot.
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.
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Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,232 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,092 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,971 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,626 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Onion + arrowroottop 11% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked 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 main body and meaty flavour of the gravy as it simmers.
- Arrowroot
- Thickens the liquid into a smooth gravy when stirred in and heated.
- Mushroom ketchup or harvey's sauce
- Adds savoury, umami depth to the gravy.
The step that matters
Stirring in the arrowroot. Arrowroot must be mixed into cold water first and added while stirring, so it disperses evenly instead of clumping. It thickens as it heats, so the gravy should be stirred until smooth and glossy.
Swap the arrowroot
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, pepper, mushroom):
- Potatofits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Tomatofits better
- 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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