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Stock for Good Gravies

A stock made from meat and ham simmered with optional vegetables, then strained and finished with meat extract or glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Stock for Good Gravies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine the meat and ham in a pot.

  2. Add vegetables if desired.

  3. Pour in 1 quart of cold water.

Simmer

  1. Cover and skim the surface.

  2. Simmer gently for 3 to 4 hours.

Strain and finish

  1. Strain the stock, discarding the meat and vegetable debris.

  2. While hot, stir in the extract of meat or glaze.

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. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Releases collagen and savory flavor into the water as it simmers, giving the stock body.
Ham
Adds salty, smoky depth and additional savory flavor to the stock.
Cold water
Serves as the solvent that slowly draws flavor and gelatin out of the meat and ham.
Extract of meat or glaze
Concentrates meaty flavor and savoriness in the finished stock.

The step that matters

Simmer gently and skim the surface. Boiling vigorously breaks up fat and impurities into the liquid, making the stock cloudy and greasy. A gentle simmer lets fat and foam rise so they can be skimmed off, leaving a clearer, cleaner stock.

“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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