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To Enrich the Colour and the Flavour of Gravies

A method of enriching gravies with diced ham, butter, spices, and optional flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

To Enrich the Colour and the Flavour of Gravies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. In a small saucepan, slowly brown the diced ham in butter.

  2. Add mace, cloves, bay leaf, herbs, shallots, and parsley root.

Cook and finish

  1. Cook for half an hour, then gradually add the mixture to the stock.

  2. If thickening is needed, stir in flour and simmer for 3–4 minutes before adding the stock.

  3. Shake the pan often to detach browning while the ham stews.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Unboiled ham
Browns in butter to release savoury, meaty flavour into the whole gravy.
Butter
Carries the ham's flavour and browns the meat, adding richness.
Shallots
Soften slowly and add gentle sweetness and aromatic depth.
Mace
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes that give the gravy its character.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells with heat, if used.
Beef stock
Forms the liquid base that gives the gravy its body and savoury backbone.

The step that matters

Brown the ham slowly in butter. Gentle heat browns the ham and its pan residue without scorching. Scorched bits turn bitter and spoil the flavour of the whole gravy, so shaking the pan often helps keep browning even.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, butter, clove, shallot, parsley, flour, beef):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, clove, shallot, parsley, flour, beef. 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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