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Sauce

Gravy, or Sauce, for Hashes or Minces

A savory gravy made from bones, onions, herbs, and spices, simmered for hours and strained for use with hash or mince.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place bones, trimmings, and gristles in a small saucepan with just enough water to cover them.

  2. Add onions, parsley, lemon thyme, marjoram, allspice, and pepper berries.

Simmer and strain

  1. Cover and simmer for 3 hours.

  2. Strain the gravy through a sieve and let it cool.

Finish

  1. When ready to use, remove the fat from the top and flavor the jelly with mushroom ketchup.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Thyme + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

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

  5. 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 meaty flavor into the liquid, which sets the sauce into a jelly.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma to the stock as they cook down.
Water
Extracts flavor and gelatin from the bones during the long simmer.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes to the broth.
Pepper berries
Contribute peppery aroma and heat to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer gently and remove the fat before using. A gentle simmer extracts gelatin without making the liquid cloudy or greasy. Fat rises to the surface as the liquid cools, so skimming it off before use keeps the jelly clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, lemon, thyme, marjoram, allspice, pepper. 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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