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Plain Gravies

A savory gravy made from veal, gravy beef, ham, and aromatics, simmered and thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Plain Gravies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Put veal, gravy beef, ham, clove, onion, celery, sherry, sweet herbs, lemon peel, and enough water to cover in a stewpan.

  2. Cover and boil until nearly dry, turning the meat frequently.

  3. Add boiling water and boil for two hours.

  4. Skim and strain the mixture.

Thicken and finish

  1. Rub butter into flour, moisten with a little gravy, and add to the strained gravy.

  2. Simmer for thirty minutes.

  3. Remove from heat, skim the liquid, and pour through a conical strainer.

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. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Gives body and meaty flavour to the gravy as it simmers down.
Gravy beef
Releases gelatin and savoury flavour into the liquid during long boiling.
Butter
Enriches the gravy and carries flavour when rubbed into the flour.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the back of a spoon.

The step that matters

Boiling down the meat until nearly dry. Reducing the meat slowly while turning it lets the juices caramelise and brown on the pan, building the depth of flavour the gravy depends on. Scorching is the risk if it is left unattended.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, beef, ham, clove, onion, celery, sherry):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Applefits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Grapefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, beef, ham, clove, onion, celery, sherry. 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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