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Essence of Ham for Gravies

A ham-based essence made by simmering ham bone and meat with herbs, water, and beef gravy, then strained for use in gravies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Essence of Ham for Gravies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove all bits of meat from the ham bone and pound them.

  2. Break the bone and place it in a saucepan with the meat, water, and sweet herbs.

Simmer and strain

  1. Simmer gently for some time, stirring occasionally.

  2. Add the beef gravy and black pepper, and continue to simmer until well flavored with the herbs.

  3. Strain the mixture and store it for enhancing gravies and sauces.

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

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

  2. Meat + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Ham + beeftop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,729 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Ham bone and meat bits
Provide the core savory flavor that the stock draws out during slow simmering.
Sweet herbs
Add aromatic flavor that infuses the liquid during simmering.
Beef gravy
Adds body and concentrated beefy flavor to the finished stock.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for some time, stirring occasionally. Gentle heat extracts flavor and gelatin from the bone and meat without making the liquid cloudy or greasy. A hard boil emulsifies fat into the stock and can make it murky, so keep it at a slow simmer.

“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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