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A Rich English Brown Gravy

A savory gravy made with ham, beef, eschalot or onion, spices, herbs, and vegetables, simmered in water or broth.

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

Prepare the meat and aromatics

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

  2. In the same pan, lightly fry the neck of beef until done, then add it over the ham.

  3. Brown the eschalots or onion gently and add them to the pan.

Make the gravy

  1. Pour in the boiling water or broth and bring to a slow boil.

  2. Skim off any scum, then add salt, cloves, mace, peppercorns, herbs, carrot, and celery.

  3. Boil gently until reduced to just over 1 pint.

Strain and serve

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

  2. Reheat the gravy, adjusting seasoning with more salt and flavoring as needed.

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 the meat and rich savoury flavour that the gravy is built on.
Lean ham
Adds savoury, salty depth through browning in the pan.
Eschalots or onion
Browned gently to add sweetness and aromatic depth to the gravy.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and body as it simmers in the liquid.

The step that matters

Skim off any scum before adding the seasonings. Scum rising during the first slow boil contains coagulated proteins and impurities that would cloud and muddy the gravy if left in. Removing it keeps the gravy clear and clean-tasting.

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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