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A Rich Gravy

A gravy made from thinly sliced beef and onions, flavored with herbs and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

A Rich Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

  1. Slice the beef and onions thinly, then flour them.

  2. Fry the beef and onions in a pan until light pale-brown, avoiding any blackening.

Make the gravy

  1. Transfer the browned mixture to a stew pan and pour boiling water over it.

  2. Bring to a boil and pour over the sliced meat.

  3. Add parsley, thyme, savory, marjoram, tarragon, mace, allspice, black pepper, cloves, and ham or bacon.

  4. Simmer until all the juices from the meat are extracted, skimming frequently.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Marjoram + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together148 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Thyme + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together528 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the meat and juices that are extracted to flavour the gravy.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they brown lightly in the pan.
Flour
Dusting the slices helps them brown evenly and lightly thickens the liquid.
Ham or bacon
Adds salty, smoky fat that enriches the savoury flavour of the broth.

The step that matters

Browning the beef and onions. Frying to light pale-brown builds savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction, but blackening gives bitter, burnt notes that carry into the gravy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, flour, parsley, thyme, marjoram, tarragon):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Fennelfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, flour, parsley, thyme, marjoram, tarragon. 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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