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A Rich Gravy

A gravy made from thinly sliced beef, onions, herbs, and ham, simmered in boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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.

  3. Flour the sliced onions and beef.

Brown and simmer

  1. Fry onions and beef in butter until light pale brown, avoiding blackening.

  2. Place browned mixture in a stew-pan.

  3. Pour boiling water over the browned mixture.

  4. Add parsley, thyme, savory, marjoram, tarragon, mace, allspice, black pepper, cloves, and ham.

  5. Simmer until 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 that gives the gravy its savory, meaty flavor.
Onions
Add sweetness and depth as they brown in butter.
Flour
Coats the beef and onions and thickens the liquid as it cooks.
Butter
Carries the frying, helping the beef and onions brown evenly.

The step that matters

Fry onions and beef until light pale brown. Browning builds savory flavor through the Maillard reaction, but blackened flour and meat turn bitter, so stop at a light pale brown.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, butter, 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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