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A Rich English Brown Gravy

A hearty gravy made with ham, beef, onions, spices, and optional mushrooms, simmered until reduced.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

A Rich English Brown Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the meat

  1. Brown the ham lightly in a pan and remove it.

  2. Lightly fry the neck of beef in the pan, then add the beef to the ham.

  3. Brown the beef gently.

Make the gravy

  1. Add the eschalots or onion.

  2. Pour boiling water or broth over the ingredients and bring to a boil.

  3. Skim off the scum.

  4. Add salt, cloves, mace, peppercorns, herbs, carrot, and celery.

  5. Boil the gravy gently until reduced to about 1 pint.

Finish

  1. Strain the gravy and let it sit until the fat rises to the top.

  2. Skim off the fat.

  3. Adjust seasoning.

  4. Add flavoring if desired.

  5. Optionally, add mushrooms or morels at the beginning for extra flavor.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

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

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

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of beef
Provides meat flavour and body as it browns and releases juices into the gravy.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty depth through browning and rendered fat.
Eschalots or onion
Contributes sweetness and aromatic flavour as they soften in the pan.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the liquid as it simmers.
Celery
Adds a light vegetal aroma that rounds out the broth.

The step that matters

Brown the beef gently. Gentle browning builds deep, savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction without scorching the flour coating, which would leave a bitter taste in the gravy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, beef, flour, pepper, onion, clove, carrot):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, beef, flour, pepper, onion, clove, carrot. 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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