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To Make a Good Beep Gravy

A gravy made from meat drippings, water, flour, soy sauce or ketchup, and butter, served with steak.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Make a Good Beep Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Pour the drippings into a saucepan and add 1 cup of boiling water.

  2. Shake in a little flour and salt, then bring to a boil while stirring constantly.

  3. Add 1 tablespoon of soy sauce or tomato ketchup.

  4. Add a little tomato ketchup to the gravy for extra flavor.

Cook and serve the steak

  1. For the steak, use a rump steak or sirloin.

  2. Broil the steak over a quick fire, placing it in front of the heat source.

  3. Do not use a fork to turn the steak or salt it while cooking.

  4. Cook a half-inch thick steak for 10 minutes and an inch thick for 15 minutes.

  5. Serve the steak on a hot dish with butter on both sides, and season with salt and pepper.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Thickens the drippings and water into a smooth gravy as it boils.
Drippings from the meat
Supply the concentrated meat flavor that the gravy is built on.
Soy sauce or tomato ketchup
Adds savory depth and a little sweetness to the gravy.

The step that matters

Stirring while the gravy comes to a boil. Flour added to hot liquid can clump before it hydrates. Stirring constantly disperses the starch so it thickens evenly into a smooth gravy.

“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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