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A Rich Gravy

A gravy made by frying beef and onions, then simmering with herbs, spices, and ham in boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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

  1. Fry the sliced beef and onions in a pan until the onions are light pale brown; do not let the onions get black.

  2. Transfer the browned onions to a stewpan.

  3. Pour boiling water into the frying pan to deglaze, boil the liquid up, and pour it over the meat.

  4. Add the parsley, thyme, savory, marjoram, tarragon, mace, allspice berries, black peppers, cloves, and ham.

  5. Simmer until all the juices from the meat are extracted, skimming the surface as it boils and frequently thereafter.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 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 give the gravy its main savoury flavour.
Onions
Browning in the pan adds sweetness and depth to the finished gravy.
Ham or gammon of bacon
Adds salty, smoky meat flavour to the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Brown the onions only to light pale brown. Onions that turn dark or black become bitter from scorching, which carries into the gravy. Light browning builds sweetness without that bitterness.

Swap the mace

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

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

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