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Gravy Stock

A savory broth made by simmering bones, vegetables, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and turnip 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 ↓

Gravy Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the bones and slice the vegetables.

  2. Melt 1 tablespoon of dripping in a stewpan.

Brown and simmer

  1. Add all ingredients except salt and cover the pan.

  2. Fry until the contents are brown.

  3. Add enough cold water to cover and bring to a boil.

  4. Skim well and add salt.

  5. Simmer gently for 2 to 3 hours without boiling hard.

Strain and finish

  1. Strain the gravy and let it cool.

  2. Skim off all 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. Leek + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 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. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Leek + carrottop 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

Meat bones
Release gelatin and savory flavor into the liquid as they simmer for hours.
Onions
Caramelize during frying, adding sweetness and depth to the stock's color and taste.
Leek
Contributes mild aromatic sweetness to the stock's background flavor.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the stock as it cooks down.
Celery seed
Adds a warm, aromatic note that rounds out the savory herbs.

The step that matters

Fry until the contents are brown. Browning the bones and vegetables through the Maillard reaction builds deep, roasted flavor and color. Pale frying produces a flatter, weaker stock.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, liver, leek, carrot, turnip, celery, ham. 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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