Name: Gravy for Roast Meat
Ingredients: ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ½ cup boiling water; 2 tablespoons brown bits from roast meat or broiled meat; ½ cup boiling water (for gravy preparation); ¼ cup thin melted butter (for veal gravy)

Why it works: Meat and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,594 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Gravy for Roast Meat

Ingredients

½ teaspoon coarse sea salt
½ cup boiling water
2 tablespoons brown bits from roast meat or broiled meat
½ cup boiling water (for gravy preparation)
¼ cup thin melted butter (for veal gravy)

Directions

Mix the salt with boiling water.
Drop the mixture onto the brown parts of the meat, catching the drippings in a dish below.
As the meat cools, the fat will rise to the surface.
Remove the fat carefully.
Warm the gravy and pour it into the dish.

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.

Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,594 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Meat + vealtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,890 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Butter + vealtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,381 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Brown bits from roast meat: Provide the concentrated meat flavour and colour that the gravy is built on.
Boiling water: Dissolves the browned bits and drippings into a liquid sauce.
Melted butter: Carries the veal brown bits and adds richness and a smooth, glossy texture.

The step that matters

Remove the fat carefully. Fat rises to the surface as the meat cools. Skimming it cleanly keeps the gravy light and smooth, while leftover fat makes it greasy and dulls the flavour.

“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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Gravy for Roast Meat