Name: To Make a Pint of Rich Gravy
Ingredients: ¼ pound butter; 2 tablespoons flour; 1 pound gravy beef, cut into small bits; 2 or 3 onions, chopped; whole black pepper to taste; 1 carrot; a bunch of sweet herbs; 3 pints water

Why it works: Pepper and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Make a Pint of Rich Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the butter in a saucepan.
Dredge in the flour and stir constantly.
Add the beef and chopped onions, cooking until browned.
Add whole black pepper, carrot, sweet herbs, and water.
Let it boil gently until reduced to 1 pint.
Strain the gravy before serving.

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.

Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,555 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,606 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Browns in the pan to add a nutty flavour and forms the base for the flour.
Flour: Dredged into the browned butter to form a roux that thickens the gravy.
Gravy beef: Browns and releases its flavour into the liquid, giving the gravy its meaty body.
Onions: Cook down with the beef, adding sweetness and savoury depth to the gravy.
Water: Forms the liquid that simmers with the other ingredients and reduces into the gravy.

The step that matters

Dredge in the flour and stir constantly. Flour added to hot fat clumps unless it is stirred continuously, so it must be mixed in evenly. Cooking the flour briefly in the fat also removes raw taste and helps it thicken smoothly.

Swap the carrot

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

Potatofits better
Chivefits better
Leekfits about as well
Carrotthe original

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

Roast Beef211 recipes

Beef Loaf175 recipes

Carrot Soup134 recipes

Corned Beef87 recipes

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To Make a Pint of Rich Gravy