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Common Gravy

A thick beef gravy made by simmering beef, suet, onions, carrots, celery, and cloves in broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Common Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pan

  1. Spread butter on the bottom of a medium-sized stewpan.

  2. Cover with thin slices of beef suet.

  3. Add slices of onions on top.

Brown the beef

  1. Place the beef and any meat trimmings in the stewpan.

  2. Moisten with 1 quart of common broth.

  3. Set over high heat to boil.

  4. Once the broth reduces to a glaze, lower the heat.

  5. Allow the gravy to develop a deep red-brown color.

Finish the gravy

  1. Fill the stewpan with more broth or water.

  2. Garnish with carrots, celery, and cloves.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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

Beef suet
Melts into the pan to add fat and richness to the gravy.
Gravy beef
Provides the meat whose juices and collagen flavor and body the gravy.
Onions
Release sugars that caramelize during browning, adding sweetness and depth to the gravy.
Common broth
Forms the liquid base that reduces to a glaze and becomes the gravy.

The step that matters

Reducing the broth to a glaze. Boiling the broth down over high heat concentrates its flavor and lets the meat and fond brown. Lowering the heat too early stops the browning, while overcooking can scorch the glaze.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, beef, onion, meat, carrot, celery):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Pepperfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, beef, onion, meat, carrot, celery. 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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