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Ve.al Gravy

A savory gravy made from veal feet, neck, liver, gizzard, and aromatics, thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Ve.al Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the feet and cut them and the neck into small pieces.

Simmer and strain

  1. Simmer them with browned bread, onion, parsley, thyme, pepper, salt, liver, gizzard, and water until reduced by half.

  2. Remove the liver.

  3. Mash the liver.

  4. Strain the liquid into the mixture.

Finish

  1. Thicken the mixture with flour and butter.

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Veal + livertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together392 recipes

    Shared aroma: enoic acid (butter, cheesy).

  4. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal feet
Release gelatin during long simmering, giving the gravy body and a silky mouthfeel.
Flour
Starch thickens the liquid as it heats, making the gravy coat a spoon.
Butter
Carries fat and flavor and combines with flour to help thicken smoothly.
Browned bread
Adds toasted flavor and deep color to the broth.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savory, umami depth to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Thickening with flour and butter. Flour clumps if added to hot liquid without being worked smooth with butter first. Starch granules must be fully dispersed and heated so they swell and thicken evenly, without lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, bread, parsley, thyme, pepper, liver, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, bread, parsley, thyme, pepper, liver, 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.

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