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Gravy, Sauces, &C.

A simple gravy made from meat trimmings, water, onion, herbs, spices, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Gravy, Sauces, &C.

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the trimmings and parings of meat, game, or poultry.

  2. Place them in a stew-pan and cover with the water from boiled meat.

Simmer and season

  1. Add an onion, parsley, sweet herbs, and a few corns of allspice or other spice.

  2. Simmer in a cool oven or cheese-toaster to avoid burning.

  3. Season with ground black pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Trimmings and parings of meat, game, or poultry
Provides the meaty flavour that gives the gravy its body.
Water from boiled meat
Forms the liquid base and carries flavour from the meat.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it simmers into the stock.

The step that matters

Simmer in a cool oven or cheese-toaster. Gentle, low heat extracts flavour from the trimmings slowly without scorching them or the liquid, which would make the gravy taste bitter and burnt.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, parsley, allspice, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, parsley, allspice, pepper. 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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