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Gravy for Sauces

A rich beef stock made by simmering beef, calf's foot, onions, carrots, herbs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Gravy for Sauces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pot

  1. Melt the fat or butter in a stewpan and add the sliced onions evenly over the bottom.

  2. Layer the beef pieces on top of the onions, adding any additional meat or game and the calf's foot.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, carrots, sweet herbs, garlic, cloves, and water.

  4. Cover the stewpan.

  5. Place the covered stewpan over high heat until the meat hisses and moisture evaporates.

  6. Remove the stewpan from heat.

  7. Tilt the stewpan to check if the fat is clear; if so, remove the fat.

Simmer and strain

  1. Gradually add warm water until you have added 2 quarts, taking about 10 minutes.

  2. Bring the liquid to a boil.

  3. Skim off any foam.

  4. Let the stock simmer for 2.5 hours. If using only flesh meat, it may take longer; a mix of meats is preferable.

  5. After simmering, skim off the fat.

  6. Strain the stock through a clean cloth into a pan.

  7. The gravy will keep for a week.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef leg
Breaks down into flavour and body during long simmering, giving the stock its savoury depth.
Calf's foot
Its collagen dissolves into the liquid, giving the stock a richer, silkier texture when chilled.
Onions
Release sweetness and savoury depth as they cook slowly in the fat at the base of the pot.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and aromatic body to the stock as they simmer.
Fat or butter
Carries flavour from the onions and meat and helps them brown gently at the start.

The step that matters

Skim off the foam and fat. Foam and fat left in the pot can turn the stock cloudy and greasy. Skimming as it boils and after simmering keeps the final liquid clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, beef, meat, pepper, carrot, garlic):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, beef, meat, pepper, carrot, garlic. 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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