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To Make a Pint of Rich Gravy

A thick beef gravy made by browning butter, flour, beef, onions, pepper, carrot, herbs, and water, then reducing to one pint.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Make a Pint of Rich Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Brown the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Dredge in the flour, stirring constantly.

  3. Add the gravy-beef and chopped onions; cook until browned.

  4. Add whole black pepper, carrot, sweet herbs, and water.

  5. Boil gently until reduced to 1 pint, then strain.

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. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 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

Butter
Browns in the pan, adding a nutty flavour and forming the base of the roux.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as it cooks with the butter, giving the gravy body.
Gravy-beef
Browns in the pan and releases meaty flavour into the gravy as it simmers.
Onions
Browns with the beef and adds sweetness and savoury depth to the stock.

The step that matters

Dredge in the flour, stirring constantly. Flour added to hot fat must be stirred continuously so it cooks evenly without lumps or scorching. Cooking the raw flour taste out at this stage keeps the finished gravy smooth and well-flavoured.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, beef, onion, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, beef, onion, 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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