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Made Gravies and Sauces

A rich gravy made by simmering beef, veal, or mutton trimmings with bones, bacon, herbs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Made Gravies and Sauces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the trimmings and bones in a stewpan, layering with beef at the bottom, followed by mutton, bacon, and any small bones.

  2. Add carrot slices, onion, mace, cloves, black and white pepper, sweet herbs, and small pieces of veal.

Make the gravy

  1. Cover the stewpan and set it over a slow fire for 6-7 minutes, shaking the pan often.

  2. Dredge in a little flour and pour in enough water to cover the ingredients slightly.

  3. Cover the stewpan and let it simmer for several hours until the gravy is rich and flavorful.

Finish and serve

  1. Season to taste with coarse sea salt, strain, and serve.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Trimmings of beef, veal, or mutton
Provide meaty flavour and gelatin-rich body as they simmer slowly in the stock.
Bones of cold joints of meat or uncooked bones
Release collagen and minerals during long simmering, giving the gravy body and savoury depth.
Flour
Dredged over the ingredients to lightly thicken the liquid as it cooks.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury aroma as it softens and browns in the pan.
Carrot
Contributes natural sweetness and aromatic depth to the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Simmering for several hours. Long, gentle simmering slowly extracts collagen from bones and meat, which converts to gelatin and gives the gravy its body. A rolling boil can cloud the liquid and make it greasy, so the heat should stay low.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, meat, ham, carrot, onion, clove, 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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