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Gravy for Roast Meat

A gravy made from roast meat trimmings, burnt sugar, walnut catsup, salt, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and walnut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,035 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Gravy for Roast Meat

about ½ cup of gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the gravy

  1. Collect trimmings from the roast meat to make about ½ cup of gravy.

  2. Brown the trimmings with a little burnt sugar and walnut catsup.

  3. Half an hour before the meat is done, sprinkle salt and water on the brownest parts.

  4. Place a dish underneath to catch the gravy that drips down.

Finish and serve

  1. Allow the gravy to cool, then remove the fat that settles on top.

  2. When the meat is done, warm the gravy before serving.

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. Meat + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,035 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + walnuttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Meat + sugartop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,866 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Trimmings from roast meat
Provide the meat drippings and browned bits that form the gravy's base flavour.
Burnt sugar
Adds colour and a deep, caramelised flavour to the gravy.
Walnut catsup
Adds savoury, tangy depth that complements the browned meat flavour.

The step that matters

Allow the gravy to cool, then remove the fat that settles on top.. Fat separates from the liquid as it cools and floats to the surface, so chilling lets it be lifted off cleanly. Skimming while hot leaves greasy, unevenly textured gravy.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Pecansfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, sugar. 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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