Skip to main content
Main

To Make a Rich Brown Gravy

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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. Once browned, pour in the boiling water and add ketchup.

  6. Add the toasted bread and herb bundle.

  7. Cover and let it stew slowly for 1 hour.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain the gravy through a sieve and serve, reserving some for 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 softens during slow stewing and flavours the gravy.
Flour
Dusted on the beef to brown and help thicken the gravy.
Butter
Fat for starting the pan, carrying flavour from the onion and meat.
Onion
Sliced and softened in the fat, adding sweetness and savoury depth.
Ketchup
Adds tomato acidity and sweetness that rounds out the gravy's flavour.
Toasted bread
Browned bread adds toasted aroma and body to the gravy.

The step that matters

Browning the beef in flour. Dredging and browning the beef on both sides builds deep, roasted flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pale meat will give a flat, thin-tasting 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes