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Gravy for Roast Meats

A simple gravy made from pan drippings, flour, and liquid, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Gravy for Roast Meats

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pan

  1. Remove the roast from the pan.

  2. Pour off the fat, leaving 3-4 tablespoons in the pan.

Make the gravy

  1. Stir in 1 heaping tablespoon of flour.

  2. Gradually add cold water or cold milk while stirring constantly.

  3. Add salt and pepper to taste and cook for a few 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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Fat
Carries flavor from the roast and helps the flour blend into a smooth base.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as its starch swells when heated in the fat and liquid.
Cold water or cold milk
Forms the liquid of the gravy, which the flour thickens into a sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the cold liquid gradually. Flour starch clumps when it meets liquid all at once. Adding cold water or milk slowly while stirring constantly lets each grain separate and hydrate evenly, so the gravy stays smooth as it thickens.

“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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