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Gravy for Joints

A simple gravy made from drippings, flour, water or stock, seasoned with coarse sea salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Gravy for Joints

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pour off excess fat from the drippings in the roasting tin.

  2. Sprinkle flour over the remaining drippings and stir to form a roux.

  3. Gradually add water or stock, stirring constantly to avoid lumps.

  4. Season with coarse sea salt and pepper to taste.

  5. Simmer until the gravy thickens and is free from 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. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

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

  3. Meat + flourtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,529 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Drippings from roasted meat
Provide the flavourful fat and browned meat juices that give the gravy its base taste.
Flour
Forms a roux with the fat, which thickens the liquid as it is added and simmered.
Water or stock
Forms the liquid body of the gravy, dissolving the roux into a pourable sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the liquid gradually while stirring. Adding water or stock slowly and stirring constantly lets the starch in the roux disperse evenly, which prevents lumps from forming as the gravy thickens.

“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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