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A Rich Gravy

A thick gravy made from beef, onions, flour, water, herbs, and ham or bacon.

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 beef into thin slices.

  2. Slice onions thinly and flour both the beef and onions.

Brown and combine

  1. Fry the beef and onions until light pale brown, avoiding any blackening.

  2. Place the beef and onions into a stew-pan.

  3. Pour boiling water over the browned bits in the frying pan and boil it up.

  4. Pour this liquid over the meat in the stew-pan.

Simmer

  1. Add a bunch of parsley, thyme, savory, a small bit of knotted marjoram, tarragon, mace, allspice berries, black peppercorns, cloves, and a bit of ham or bacon.

  2. Simmer until all flavors are extracted.

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 rich savoury flavour that the gravy is built on.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they brown lightly with the beef.
Flour
Coats the beef and onions so they brown evenly and help thicken the liquid.

The step that matters

Fry the beef and onions until light pale brown. Browning builds savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction, but blackened bits taste bitter and burnt. Stop at light pale brown so the gravy stays rich rather than acrid.

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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