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Cullis or a Thick Gravy

A thick gravy made from ham, veal, vegetables, herbs, spices, and broth, simmered and thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cullis or a Thick Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine ham, veal, celery, carrots, turnips, onion, leek, sweet herbs, allspice, black pepper, mace, lemon peel, and bay leaves in a pan.

  2. Add 4 cups of water and cook over medium heat until light brown, being careful not to burn.

  3. Add enough beef broth to cover the ingredients and bring to a boil.

Make the gravy

  1. Skim off any fat and thicken the mixture with flour and butter.

  2. Simmer gently for 45 minutes.

  3. Season with Cayenne pepper, lemon juice, and coarse sea salt.

  4. Strain through a sieve and add a little coloring liquid.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 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

Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks, giving it a body that clings to food.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the flour blend smoothly into the liquid as a thickener.
Veal
Contributes gelatin and savory meat flavor that gives the gravy body and depth.
Ham
Adds salty, smoky meat flavor that seasons the whole gravy.

The step that matters

Cook the ingredients until light brown without burning. Browning the meat and vegetables builds deep, roasted flavor through the Maillard reaction. Burnt solids, however, turn bitter and can spoil the whole gravy, so heat must stay moderate and the pan should be watched closely.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, veal, celery, carrot, turnip, onion, leek):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, celery, carrot, turnip, onion, leek. 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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