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Gravy for Fish or White Sauce

A thick fish gravy made by simmering onions, leeks, celery, carrots, turnips, herbs, spices, bacon, beef, and anchovy, then reduced.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Gravy for Fish or White Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Boil the ingredients and skim off any impurities.

  2. Season with onions, leeks, celery, carrots, turnips, herbs, cloves, allspice, and salt.

  3. Let it stew for 4 hours, then strain and set aside.

Make the strong gravy

  1. For strong gravy, layer bacon, beef, carrot, onion, bread, herbs, mace, cloves, pepper, and anchovy in a stewpan.

  2. Cover and cook on low heat for 5-6 minutes.

  3. Pour in 1 quart of the prepared gravy, cover, and let it simmer until reduced by half.

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. Leek + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Build the savory, sweet base flavor of the stock.
Celery
Adds aromatic depth to the stock as it simmers.
Anchovy
Adds savory depth that rounds out the gravy's flavor.
Bacon
Releases fat and smoky, savory flavor into the gravy.
Beef
Contributes meaty richness and body to the strong gravy.

The step that matters

Reducing the strong gravy by half. Simmering slowly concentrates flavor and thickens the liquid through evaporation. Too high a heat or too long can over-salt or scorch the gravy, so keep it at a gentle simmer and watch it closely.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (leek, celery, carrot, turnip, clove, allspice, beef):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against leek, celery, carrot, turnip, clove, allspice, beef. 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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