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To Make Gravy

A savory meat gravy made with beef, veal, mutton, bacon, carrot, mace, cloves, pepper, onion, and water, seasoned with coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

To Make Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef, veal, and mutton into small pieces.

  2. In a large deep saucepan, layer the beef at the bottom, followed by the mutton and bacon.

  3. Add the carrot, mace, cloves, whole pepper, and onion.

  4. Pour a little water at the bottom and cover the saucepan.

Brown and stew

  1. Cook over gentle heat until the bottom is brown and hissing.

  2. Pour boiling water over the meat and stew gently for 1.5 hours, or less for smaller quantities.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt to taste.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  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

Beef
Provides rich meaty flavor and tender body as it stews slowly.
Veal
Adds gentle body and a mild, delicate meaty flavor to the stock.
Mutton
Contributes deeper, more robust meaty flavor to the gravy.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky, savory flavor that enriches the gravy.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it cooks down.

The step that matters

Cook over gentle heat until the bottom is brown and hissing. Browning the meat and fat on the pan base builds deep roasted flavor through the Maillard reaction. Heat that is too low won't brown, while heat that is too high can scorch the bottom before the meat releases its juices.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, mutton, carrot, clove, pepper, onion):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, mutton, carrot, clove, pepper, onion. 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.

More gravy recipes

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