Skip to main content
Main

To Make Veal, Mutton, and Beef Gravy

A savory gravy made by layering bacon or ham, thinly sliced veal, mutton or beef, and vegetables, then simmering in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Thyme and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,077 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Make Veal, Mutton, and Beef Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pan

  1. Place the bacon or ham at the bottom of a stew pan.

  2. Layer the thin slices of meat over the bacon or ham.

  3. Add the chopped onion, turnip, carrot, celery, thyme, and allspice on top of the meat.

  4. Pour a little water at the bottom of the pan.

Brown and stew

  1. Set the pan over gentle heat.

  2. Cook until the bottom is browned.

  3. Pour boiling water over the mixture.

  4. Stew gently for 1.5 hours, or less for smaller quantities.

  5. Season with coarse sea salt to taste.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Bacon or ham
Releases fat as it cooks, helping brown the base and flavour the gravy.
Meat (veal, mutton, or beef)
Provides the main savoury flavour and body for the gravy as it stews.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth as it softens and browns slowly.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the stewed liquid.
Turnip
Contributes mild sweetness and earthy flavour to the stock.

The step that matters

Cook until the bottom is browned. Browning the base over gentle heat builds deep savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pale sticking-free cooking gives a flatter gravy, and scorching would make it bitter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, meat, turnip, carrot, celery, thyme, allspice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, meat, turnip, carrot, celery, thyme, 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.

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesTurnip SoupTurnip Soup43 recipes