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Gravy for Game

A savory gravy made from beef or veal, onions, herbs, and spices, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Gravy for Game

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Cut the beef into small pieces and place in a saucepan with butter and minced onion.

  2. Cook until browned, then add bay leaf, cloves, peppercorns, parsley, carrot, and crushed celery seed tied in muslin.

  3. Mix corn flour with water to a smooth paste and add to the saucepan.

  4. Stir the sauce until it boils, cover, and simmer gently for at least an hour.

Strain and season

  1. Strain the sauce, let it cool, and remove any fat.

  2. Add sugar and salt to taste, then boil before serving.

  3. Stir in sherry and pour around the cooked birds.

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 + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  4. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together794 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the meaty flavour base that gives the gravy its body and savoury depth.
Corn flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells when heated, giving the gravy body.
Butter
Adds fat for browning the beef and onion, building richer flavour and mouthfeel.
Onion
Softens and browns in the fat, adding sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic complexity to finish the gravy.

The step that matters

Cook the flour paste into the sauce until it boils. Raw starch only thickens fully once it boils and swells, and stirring prevents lumps from forming as the paste disperses through the hot liquid.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, onion, parsley, carrot, celery, corn):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, onion, parsley, carrot, celery, corn. 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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