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Strong Savoury Gravy, Alias “brown Sauce,” Alias “grand Esfagnol”

A thick, savory gravy made with ham or bacon, beef or veal, vegetables, herbs, and spices, simmered and boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Strong Savoury Gravy, Alias “brown Sauce,” Alias “grand Esfagnol”

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Place the slices of ham or bacon at the bottom of a 4‑quart stew pan.

  2. Add the beef or veal, carrot, onion, celery, parsley, lemon thyme, savory, basil, bay leaf, eschalot, lemon peel, and allspice.

  3. Pour in ½ pint of water.

  4. Cover the pan.

Brown the meat

  1. Simmer gently on low heat for 30 minutes until almost dry.

  2. Carefully turn the meat to brown it evenly on all sides.

Make the sauce

  1. Add 3 pints of boiling water.

  2. Boil for 2 hours.

  3. Strain the gravy through a fine sieve.

  4. Let it cool.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef or veal
Breaks down into rich meat flavour and body in the gravy as it simmers.
Ham or bacon
Adds savoury, salty depth and fat that flavours the stock.
Onion
Contributes sweetness and aroma as it cooks slowly in the pan.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the stock.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savoury flavour to the stock.

The step that matters

Browning the meat until almost dry. Driving off water and caramelising the meat surfaces builds deep, roasted flavour through the Maillard reaction. Stirring or turning too roughly can tear the meat and dull the colour, so turn it carefully.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Avocadofits less well
  4. Orangefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, beef, carrot, onion, clove, celery, parsley. 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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