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Another Cheap Gravy for a Fowl

A simple gravy made with ham, broth, peppercorns, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28,563 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Another Cheap Gravy for a Fowl

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Lightly brown the ham in butter in a pan.

  2. Add the broth, peppercorns, and parsley.

  3. Stew for 30 minutes until well combined.

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. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Ham + parsleytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,249 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean ham
Provides savory meat flavor that carries into the gravy as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat that helps brown the ham and enriches the gravy's flavor and mouthfeel.
Good broth
Forms the liquid base of the gravy, supplying most of its savory flavor.

The step that matters

Lightly brown the ham in butter. Browning creates savory flavors through the Maillard reaction. Skipping it or overcooking the ham can leave the gravy flat or tough, so brown it lightly before adding liquid.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, butter):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter. 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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