Name: Gravy, or Sauce, for Hashes or Minces
Ingredients: bones, trimmings, and gristles from dressed joints; water (enough to just cover the bones); 2 onions, unpeeled with roots removed; a little parsley; a few sprigs of lemon thyme; a few sprigs of marjoram; ½ teaspoon allspice; ½ teaspoon pepper berries; mushroom ketchup (to taste)

Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Gravy, or Sauce, for Hashes or Minces

Ingredients

bones, trimmings, and gristles from dressed joints
water (enough to just cover the bones)
2 onions, unpeeled with roots removed
a little parsley
a few sprigs of lemon thyme
a few sprigs of marjoram
½ teaspoon allspice
½ teaspoon pepper berries
mushroom ketchup (to taste)

Directions

Make the stock

Place the bones, trimmings, and gristles in a small saucepan and cover with water.
Add the onions, parsley, lemon thyme, marjoram, allspice, and pepper berries.
Cover the saucepan and simmer for 3 hours.

Strain and finish

Strain the gravy through a sieve and let it cool.
Remove the fat from the top of the cooled gravy.
Flavor the jelly with mushroom ketchup to taste.

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.

Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,225 recipes

Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).
Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,057 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,979 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Thyme + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,077 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bones, trimmings, and gristles: Release gelatin and savory flavor into the water during long simmering, forming the body of the gravy.
Onions: Add sweetness and depth of flavor to the stock as they simmer.
Mushroom ketchup: Adds concentrated savory, umami flavor to the finished jelly.

The step that matters

Remove the fat after cooling. Fat rises and solidifies on top of a cooled stock, so it can be lifted off cleanly. Skimming before cooling leaves greasy patches that make the gravy heavy and cloudy on the palate.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, lemon, thyme, marjoram, allspice, pepper, mushroom):

Shallotfits better
Carrotfits better
Parsnipfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, lemon, thyme, marjoram, allspice, pepper, mushroom. 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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Gravy, or Sauce, for Hashes or Minces