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Rich Brown Gravy

A savory gravy made from finely chopped meat, butter, onion, herbs, and optional seasonings, thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Rich Brown Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Chop the meat and ham finely.

  2. In a stew pan, melt the butter and add the sliced onion and chopped meat.

  3. Cover and cook on low heat for a few minutes, stirring to prevent sticking.

  4. Once the meat is browned, gradually add the water.

Simmer

  1. When it boils, add any bones, chicken heads, or feet you have.

  2. Skim off any foam, then add the toasted bread, herbs, lemon peel, allspice, and black pepper.

  3. Cover and simmer until the liquid reduces by half and the bones look white and dry.

Strain and finish

  1. Strain the gravy, let it cool, and skim off any fat.

  2. Thicken the gravy with butter and flour.

  3. For added flavor, blend the poultry livers with butter, cayenne, nutmeg, port wine, mushroom catsup, and lemon juice, then stir into the gravy.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Winter savory + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together863 recipes

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

  3. Winter savory + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together616 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Browns in butter to build the savory, roasted flavor base of the gravy.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, adding depth to the stock.
Butter
Carries flavor during browning and enriches the gravy as a fat.
Flour
Thickens the gravy by swelling with liquid to give it body.
Toasted bread
Adds toasty, browned notes and helps give the gravy body.

The step that matters

Thicken after straining and cooling. Flour thickens best when cooled liquid is whisked with butter and flour, since adding it to boiling liquid can clump and leave a lumpy texture.

“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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