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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.

  4. Place the beef slices and any meat trimmings in the pan.

  5. Moisten with 1 quart of broth.

Cook the gravy

  1. Set over high heat to boil.

  2. When reduced to a glaze, reduce heat by partially covering with ashes.

  3. Allow to cook until deep red-brown.

  4. Fill the stewpan with broth or water.

  5. 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

Gravy beef
Provides the meat flavor and the rich body of the gravy as it browns and reduces.
Beef suet
Adds fat that helps the meat brown and carries flavor into the pan.
Butter
Adds fat to the pan, helping the onions and meat brown without sticking.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they caramelize, deepening the color and flavor.

The step that matters

Reducing to a glaze. The meat and onions must be cooked until the pan sticks and turns deep red-brown before liquid is added. This browning, through the Maillard reaction and caramelization, builds the color and flavor of the gravy, so reducing too quickly or too little can leave it pale and thin.

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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