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Geavy for Cold Meats

A savory gravy made with lard, flour, onion, sugar, vinegar, and spices, served hot over slices of cold meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Geavy for Cold Meats

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. In a skillet, brown the lard and flour together.

  2. Add the minced onion and sugar, stirring until nicely browned.

  3. Remove from heat and gradually stir in the vinegar and water until it reaches gravy consistency.

  4. If available, add any leftover meat gravy and season with allspice, cloves, pepper, salt, and bay leaf.

Add the meat and serve

  1. Stir in a few raisins and the slices of cold meat.

  2. Bring to a boil and serve hot.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Flour + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Browned with the lard, it thickens the gravy as it cooks.
Lard
Fat that carries the browning and adds richness to the gravy.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour of the gravy.
Onion
Browned with sugar, it adds savoury depth and sweetness.
Sugar
Browns with the onion, adding colour and a caramel sweetness.

The step that matters

Browning the lard and flour. Cooking the flour in fat until nicely browned develops flavour and colour and removes raw starch taste. Stirring keeps it from scorching, which would make the gravy bitter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, vinegar, meat, allspice, clove, pepper):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, vinegar, meat, allspice, clove, pepper. 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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