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Savoury Brown Gravy, for Brown Sauces, Ragouts, and Fricassees

A savory brown gravy made from veal, ham or bacon, carrots, onions, stock, herbs, and optional mushrooms, garlic, celery, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Savoury Brown Gravy, for Brown Sauces, Ragouts, and Fricassees

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pan

  1. Line a stew pan with slices of ham or bacon.

  2. Add the veal slices and moisten with 1-2 ladlefuls of good stock.

  3. Add the carrots and onions, using more if desired for flavor.

Cook and season

  1. Remove from heat and prick the meat to release juices.

  2. Moisten again with broth made from gelatinous meat like poultry or game.

  3. Season with herbs, mushrooms, and optional spices.

  4. Let the gravy settle for a few minutes before straining.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fillet of veal
Supplies the meat and gelatin that give the gravy body and savoury depth.
Ham or bacon
Lines the pan and adds salty, smoky flavour to the stock.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and aromatic flavour as they soften in the pan.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury aroma that deepen as they cook.
Stock
Provides the liquid base that dissolves the meat juices into the gravy.

The step that matters

Prick the meat after removing from heat. Pricking releases the juices inside the meat so they mix into the liquid, building flavour. Doing it off the heat keeps the juices from over-reducing or drying out.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, carrot, onion, parsley, mushroom, garlic):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, carrot, onion, parsley, mushroom, garlic. 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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