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Gravy for Hashes

A grape wine made with sugar, brandy, and isinglass, fermented and aged for months.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Grape and brandy work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 711 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Gravy for Hashes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Strip the grapes from the stalks and bruise them well in a wooden tub or earthenware bowl.

  2. Pour the cold water over the bruised grapes and let them stand for 3 days, stirring frequently.

  3. Strain the mixture through a jelly-bag or fine hair sieve.

Ferment and clarify

  1. Dissolve the sugar in the liquid and pour the mixture into a cask.

  2. Bung lightly for a few days until fermentation subsides.

  3. Add the isinglass dissolved in a little warm water and the brandy, then tighten the bung.

  4. Let the cask remain undisturbed for 6 months.

Bottle and age

  1. Rack the wine off into bottles, cork and seal them securely, and keep for at least a year before using.

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. Grape + brandytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together711 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,490 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Grapes
Provide the juice and natural sugars that ferment into the wine.
Loaf sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and adds sweetness and alcohol.
French brandy
Raises the alcohol content, helping preserve the wine.
Isinglass
Fining agent that gathers suspended particles so the wine clears.

The step that matters

Bunging lightly during fermentation. A loose bung lets carbon dioxide escape so the cask does not build pressure or burst, while still keeping most air out. Tightening too early can trap gas and stall or spoil fermentation.

Swap the grape

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. 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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