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Sauce

Gravy D. LA Diable

A spicy gravy made with brown stock, arrowroot, claret, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, cayenne, salt, and soy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and mustard share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Gravy D. LA Diable

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the arrowroot with the claret.

  2. Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil.

  3. Serve with kidneys, steaks, or grilled fish.

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. Arrowroot + mustardtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together22 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Arrowroot + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together133 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Clear brown stock
Forms the savoury liquid base that gives the sauce its main body and flavour.
Arrowroot
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells and sets when heated, giving a glossy texture.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine depth that balances the richness of the stock.
French mustard
Adds sharp pungency that cuts through the richness of the sauce.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury, tangy depth and umami to the sauce.

The step that matters

Bringing the arrowroot mixture to a boil. Arrowroot must be fully mixed smooth with the claret first, or it will form lumps. It thickens as its starch heats, but prolonged boiling or stirring can thin it again, so bring it to the boil and remove it promptly once thickened.

Swap the arrowroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, sauce):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, sauce. 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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