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A Rich Gravy

A gravy made from thinly sliced beef, onions, flour, herbs, and ham or bacon, simmered until juices are extracted.

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

  1. Cut the beef into thin slices.

  2. Slice the onions and flour them.

  3. Fry the onions and flour until light pale-brown, avoiding blackening.

Make the gravy

  1. Put them in a stew-pan and pour boiling water over the browning in the frying pan.

  2. Boil it up and pour it over the meat.

  3. Add a bunch of parsley, thyme, savory, a small bit of knotted marjoram, tarragon, some mace, allspice berries, whole black pepper, cloves, and a bit of ham or bacon.

  4. Simmer until all the juices of the meat are extracted, skimming often after it boils.

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 juices that are extracted during simmering to flavour the gravy.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth when fried to a light pale-brown.
Flour
Coats the onions and browns with them, helping thicken and colour the gravy.
Ham or gammon of bacon
Adds salty, smoky meat flavour to the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Frying the onions and flour. Frying to light pale-brown toasts the flour and onion sugars for a richer colour and nutty flavour. Past that point the starch and sugars scorch, leaving a bitter taste and dark colour that the gravy cannot lose.

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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