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Beef Gravy Sauce, or Brown Sauce for Ragouts, Game, Poultry, Fish, Etc.

A rich beef gravy sauce made with ham or butter, onion, beef, water, herbs, spices, and thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Beef Gravy Sauce, or Brown Sauce for Ragouts, Game, Poultry, Fish, Etc.

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the meat

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

  2. Add the beef.

  3. Score the beef to increase surface area.

  4. Cover the pan.

  5. Set on low heat until the meat begins to brown.

  6. Turn the meat to brown slightly without burning.

Simmer the gravy

  1. Pour in the boiling water.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Skim off any scum.

  4. Add the toasted bread.

  5. Add the savory or thyme.

  6. Add the parsley.

  7. Add the lemon peel.

  8. Add the allspice.

  9. Add the black pepper.

  10. Cover the pan.

  11. Let it simmer gently for about 2 hours.

  12. Strain the mixture through a sieve into a basin.

Thicken and finish

  1. Melt the butter in a clean stew pan over low heat.

  2. Gradually add flour.

  3. Stir until well mixed.

  4. Add a little of the gravy. Stir.

  5. Add the remaining gravy gradually.

  6. Simmer for 15-20 minutes.

  7. Skim off fat.

  8. Check consistency; when thickened to the consistency of cream, 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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together287 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  4. Parsley + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Browning and long simmering release meat flavour and gelatin into the liquid, giving body to the gravy.
Butter
Enriches the flavour and, with flour, forms the roux that thickens the finished gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as its starch swells in the hot liquid, giving a smooth, creamy texture.
Onion
Softens and browns with the fat, adding sweetness and savoury depth to the base.
Allspice berries
Add warm, aromatic spice notes that flavour the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Adding the gravy to the roux gradually. Adding liquid slowly while stirring lets the flour disperse evenly and swell without lumps, giving a smooth, properly thickened gravy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, beef, bread, winter savory, parsley, lemon, allspice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, beef, bread, winter savory, parsley, lemon, allspice. 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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