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A Good Stock Gravy

A beef stock gravy made by simmering beef, water, seasonings, and herbs, then reducing and straining.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

A Good Stock Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the beef in a large pot with the water.

  2. Season with salt and whole black and white pepper.

  3. Add the fried onions, mace, and herbs.

  4. Bring to a boil and reduce by half.

  5. Strain the mixture and keep the stock for later use.

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 + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  3. Beef + macetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,969 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides collagen and meat flavour that give the stock body and savoury depth.
Fried onions
Add sweetness and browned, savoury aroma to the stock.
Black and white peppercorns
Add gentle, warm spiciness that builds aroma as the stock simmers.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil and reduce by half. Boiling too hard can make the stock cloudy and greasy, while reducing too little leaves it thin and weak in flavour. Keep it at a gentle simmer and reduce until the liquid tastes concentrated.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion. 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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