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Gravy for Rump Steaks

A simple gravy made from pan fat, butter, flour, boiling water, ketchup, pepper, and salt, served over rump steaks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Gravy for Rump Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Pour the fat out of the pan.

  2. Dredge the pan with flour and let it brown slightly.

  3. Add the butter and mix it with the flour in the pan until well combined.

  4. When it is a little brown, gradually mix in the boiling water until the sauce is the thickness of cream.

  5. Stir in the ketchup, pepper, and salt to taste.

  6. Keep stirring until the sauce boils for one to two minutes.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the steaks through a sieve.

  2. Garnish the steaks with parsley or horseradish if desired.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Browns in the pan fat and thickens the liquid into a smooth gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that blends with the flour to carry flavour.
Fat from the pan
Carries the meat flavours and browns the flour for a deeper taste.
Boiling water
Hydrates the flour starch so the sauce thickens as it cooks.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity that rounds out the savoury gravy.

The step that matters

Keep stirring until the sauce boils for one to two minutes. Starch in the flour only thickens fully once it reaches a boil and is held there briefly. Stopping early leaves a thin, floury-tasting gravy, while stirring prevents lumps from forming as the liquid is added.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, ketchup, pepper):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, ketchup, pepper. 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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