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Gravy in Haste

A quick gravy made with lean meat, onion, carrot, turnip, herbs, butter, cloves, peppercorns, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Gravy in Haste

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a thick saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped meat, onion, carrot, turnip, thyme, and parsley.

  3. Stir until the mixture is slightly browned.

  4. Add the cloves, peppercorns, and water (1 pint for every pound of meat).

  5. Skim off any scum that forms on the surface.

  6. Bring to a boil and let it simmer for 30 minutes.

  7. Strain the gravy before serving.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean meat
Provides the main flavor and body of the gravy as it simmers in the water.
Butter
Carries the vegetables and meat in the pan and helps them brown for deeper flavor.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savory depth as it softens and browns with the meat.
Water
Extracts flavor from the meat and vegetables as it simmers into the gravy.

The step that matters

Stir until the mixture is slightly browned. Browning the meat and vegetables creates savory, roasted flavors through the Maillard reaction. Pale ingredients make a flat, less flavorful gravy, so the surface should color before the water goes in.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, carrot, turnip, thyme, parsley, butter, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, carrot, turnip, thyme, parsley, butter, clove. 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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