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Cullis, or a Thick Gravy

A thick gravy made from ham, veal, vegetables, herbs, spices, and beef broth, thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cullis, or a Thick Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Combine ham, veal, celery, carrot, turnip, onion, leek, sweet herbs, allspice, black pepper, mace, lemon peel, and bay leaves in a pan.

  2. Add 1 quart of water.

  3. Cook until light brown, being careful not to burn.

  4. Add enough beef broth to cover the ingredients.

  5. Bring to a boil.

  6. Skim off any fat.

Thicken and finish

  1. Thicken with a mixture of flour and butter.

  2. Simmer gently for 45 minutes.

  3. Season with Cayenne pepper, lemon juice, and salt.

  4. Strain through a sieve.

  5. Add a little coloring liquid.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks, giving it body.
Butter
Combined with flour to form a roux that thickens and adds richness.
Veal
Adds meaty body and gelatin to the stock, deepening flavour.
Ham
Contributes savoury, salty depth to the stock.
Beef broth
Provides the liquid base that extracts flavour from the solids.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens and balances the rich stock.

The step that matters

Cook until light brown, being careful not to burn. Gentle browning builds roasted, savoury flavour and colour in the stock. Scorched solids turn bitter and can taint the whole gravy, so heat must be watched closely.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, veal, celery, carrot, turnip, onion, leek):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, celery, carrot, turnip, onion, leek. 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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