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French Gravy

A thickened beef gravy made by simmering beef in water, then thickening with flour and burned sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

French Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare and roast

  1. Season the beef and place it in three vessels.

  2. Add 1.5 gallons of water to each vessel and cover tightly.

  3. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and place the vessels inside.

  4. Cook for about 8 hours until the meat is perfectly cooked.

Finish the gravy

  1. Remove the meat and add 5 gallons of water to the liquid in the vessels.

  2. Stir in a little flour and a dust of burned sugar to thicken the gravy.

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 + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Beef + sugartop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Beef and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 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

Beef
Releases meaty flavor and gelatin into the cooking liquid, giving the gravy body and richness.
Flour
Its starch swells in hot liquid, thickening the gravy into a smooth, coating consistency.
Burned sugar
Adds deep brown color and a slightly bittersweet, caramel aroma to the gravy.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour. Flour must be stirred into hot liquid gradually so its starch disperses evenly. Added in one clump, it forms lumps that stay raw and floury inside, and the gravy will not thicken smoothly.

“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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