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To Ueigtiten the Colour and the Flavour of Gravies

A method of browning and flavouring gravy stock with ham, butter, herbs and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,768 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

To Ueigtiten the Colour and the Flavour of Gravies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the browned base

  1. In a small saucepan, slowly colour the diced ham in butter.

  2. Shake the pan often to detach the browning while the ham stews.

  3. Add mace, cloves, bay leaf, savory herbs, eschalots (or onion), and parsley root.

  4. Stew for 30 minutes.

  5. Ensure the pan's side is reddish brown before adding the stock.

Finish the gravy

  1. If thickening is needed, stir in flour and simmer for 3-4 minutes before adding stock.

  2. Boil for 20 minutes.

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. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Lean unboiled ham
Browns in the butter and releases savoury flavour that colours the gravy base.
Butter
Carries the ham to a slow browning and adds richness to the base.
Eschalots or onion
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften and brown.
Flour
Thickens the liquid to give the gravy body, if used.

The step that matters

Browning the ham and pan side. Colour must develop slowly in the butter until the pan side turns reddish brown. Browned proteins and sugars create the colour and savoury flavour, while scorching gives a bitter taste that the stock cannot correct.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, clove, onion, parsley, beef, flour. 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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