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Rich Deep-coloured Veal Gravy

A thick gravy made from veal, ham, broth, parsley, mushrooms, green onions, mace, white peppercorns, and celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rich Deep-coloured Veal Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. In a large thick stewpan, lay the sliced ham.

  2. Add the veal on top of the ham.

  3. Pour in the broth and place the pan over a brisk fire until well reduced.

Make the glaze

  1. Insert a knife into the meat and continue stewing gently until a glaze forms.

  2. Shake the stewpan frequently and watch the gravy to prevent burning.

  3. When the gravy is a fine deep amber color, pour in enough boiling broth to cover the meat.

  4. Add the parsley, mushrooms, green onions, mace, white peppercorns, and celery.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + celerytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,006 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean veal
Provides the meat that breaks down into the body and rich flavor of the gravy.
Undressed ham
Releases savory fat and flavor as it stews, adding depth to the gravy.
Broth
Supplies liquid that reduces and concentrates into the gravy and helps form the glaze.

The step that matters

Reducing and browning the glaze. Once the glaze forms it can scorch quickly. Frequent shaking and watching keep the proteins and sugars browning to a deep amber rather than burning, which would make the gravy bitter.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, veal, meat, parsley, mushroom, onion, celery):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, meat, parsley, mushroom, onion, celery. 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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