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To Make a Rich Brown Gravy

A beef gravy made with butter, onion, ham or bacon, flour, water, ketchup, toasted bread crust, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Make a Rich Brown Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. In a clean stewpan, melt the butter over low heat.

  2. Add the sliced onion, ham or bacon, and beef.

  3. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, sugar, and allspice.

  4. Dredge the beef with flour and let it brown nicely on both sides.

  5. Prick the meat with a fork, then add boiling water, ketchup, and the toasted bread crust.

  6. Add the herb bundle, cover, and let it stew slowly for 1 hour.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain the gravy through a sieve and serve, reserving some to accompany the steak.

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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rump fillet of beef
Provides the meat that releases juices and flavour into the gravy as it stews.
Butter
Carries the onion and meat flavours and helps the flour brown on the beef.
Flour
Coats the beef so it browns and thickens the gravy as it cooks.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock.
Ketchup
Adds acidity and tangy, savoury depth to the finished gravy.
Toasted bread crust
Adds toasted, roasted notes and body to the gravy.

The step that matters

Dredge the beef with flour and brown it on both sides. Browning the floured meat creates Maillard flavour compounds that give the gravy its deep colour and rich taste. Pale, under-browned meat yields a flat gravy.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, ham, beef, pepper, sugar, flour):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, ham, beef, pepper, sugar, flour. 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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