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Rich DEEr-COLOURED Veal Gravy

A thick veal gravy made with ham, veal, broth, onion, carrot, celery, mace, peppercorns, and optional mushrooms and bones.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Rich DEEr-COLOURED Veal Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. In a large thick stewpan or saucepan, place the ham.

  2. Add the veal and broth, or water if using veal.

  3. After boiling, skim the gravy and add salt, onion, herbs, celery, carrot, mace, and peppercorns.

  4. Stew gently for 4 hours until the meat is in fragments.

  5. For added flavor, include mushroom buttons and bones if desired.

Strain and cool

  1. Strain the gravy and let it cool to remove the fat.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Carrot + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,796 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal neck or knuckle
Breaks down during long stewing to give the gravy body and rich meaty flavor.
Ham
Adds savory, salty depth to the stock as it simmers.
Broth
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavor of the meat and vegetables.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and aromatic background to the gravy.
Celery
Adds savory, herbal aroma that rounds out the stock.

The step that matters

Skim the gravy after it boils. Skimming removes foam and loose impurities that would otherwise cloud the gravy and make it taste muddy. Chilling after straining lets the fat solidify on top so it can be lifted off cleanly.

Swap the mace

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

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

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