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Rich Brown Gravy

A beef-based gravy made with onions, spices, herbs, and flour, simmered until strong.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Rich Brown Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the beef into thin slices.

  2. Broil some beef slices over a clear fire to color the gravy without cooking the meat.

Make the gravy

  1. Place the broiled and raw meat in a stew-pan with onions, spices, and herbs.

  2. Cover the stew-pan with boiling water.

  3. Let it boil.

  4. Skim the gravy until clear.

  5. Simmer until strong.

Thicken and finish

  1. Rub sliced beef and onions in flour.

  2. Fry the floured beef and onions until brown, avoiding burning.

  3. Transfer the fried mixture to a saucepan.

  4. Pour boiling water from the frying pan over the meat in the saucepan.

  5. Add parsley, savoury, thyme, marjoram, and spices.

  6. Simmer until strong.

  7. Strain the gravy before serving.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Allspice + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 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

Beef
Provides the meat flavour and, when browned, the colour of the gravy.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they cook down into the liquid.
Flour
Coats the meat and onions, then thickens the gravy as it cooks in the liquid.

The step that matters

Frying the floured beef and onions. Flour browns quickly and can scorch, which gives a bitter taste and dark specks. Stir gently and stop at a rich brown, not black, before adding the water.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, clove, allspice, pepper, flour, parsley, thyme):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, clove, allspice, pepper, flour, parsley, thyme. 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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