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The Dinner Question

A tomato-based gravy thickened with flour, catsup, and optional port wine, served over meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,469 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

The Dinner Question

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. In a hot deep dish, mix the gravy and flour to thicken.

  2. Skim carefully.

  3. Add the thickening and stir.

  4. Boil for half a minute.

Serve

  1. Pour the flavored gravy over the meat.

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. Sauce + tomatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Tomato + meattop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,438 recipes

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

  3. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Tomato + port winetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together120 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Flour + port winetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,167 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the gravy as it heats, giving it body.
Gravy
Forms the liquid base that the other flavorings are added to.
Tomato sauce
Adds tomato flavor and acidity to the gravy.
Catsup
Adds sweetness, acidity and tomato flavor to the gravy.

The step that matters

Adding the thickening. Flour must be fully mixed into hot liquid and brought to a boil so its starch swells and thickens evenly; otherwise lumps form and the gravy stays thin or grainy.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sauce, port wine, meat):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sauce, port wine, meat. 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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