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Reef Gravy Sauce, or Brown Sauce for Ragouts, Game, Poultry, Fish, Sfc.

A thickened gravy sauce made with ham or bacon, gravy beef, onions, water, herbs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Reef Gravy Sauce, or Brown Sauce for Ragouts, Game, Poultry, Fish, Sfc.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Heat the ham or bacon in a thick, well-tinned stew pan.

  2. Melt the butter with the onion.

  3. Add the gravy beef, scoring it, and cover the pan.

  4. Set the pan on a slow fire until the meat begins to brown, then turn it to brown slightly without burning.

  5. Pour in the boiling water, bring to a boil, and skim off any scum.

  6. Add the toasted bread, savory, parsley, lemon peel, allspice, and black pepper.

  7. Cover the pan and let it stew gently for about two hours, then strain through a sieve into a basin.

Thicken and finish

  1. Melt the butter in a clean stew pan, gradually add flour until it dries up, stirring well.

  2. Pour in a little of the gravy, mix thoroughly, then add the rest gradually.

  3. Simmer gently for 15-20 minutes, skimming off fat, until thick as cream, then strain through a fine sieve.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Winter savory + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together863 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Winter savory + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together616 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Gravy beef
Provides the meat flavour and body that the stock is built on.
Butter
Carries the onion's flavour and, with flour, forms the roux that thickens the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks into the butter, giving it a creamy body.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth to the stock as it softens and browns.
Ham or bacon
Adds salty, smoky richness to the stock.

The step that matters

Adding the gravy to the roux. Pouring the liquid in gradually while stirring keeps the flour smooth, so lumps do not form and the sauce thickens evenly.

“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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