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Gravy, or Sauce, for Hashes or Minces

A savory gravy or sauce made from bones, trimmings, and aromatics, suitable for hash or minced meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Gravy, or Sauce, for Hashes or Minces

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Place bones, trimmings, and gristles in a small saucepan with just enough water to cover them.

  2. Add onions, parsley, lemon thyme, marjoram, allspice, and pepper berries.

  3. Cover and simmer for 1 hour.

  4. Strain the gravy through a sieve.

  5. Let the strained gravy cool.

Finish and serve

  1. When ready to use, remove the fat from the top.

  2. Flavor the gravy with mushroom ketchup, walnut pickle, or shallot vinegar to taste.

  3. Thicken with browning for brown meat or flour for white meat.

  4. Bring the gravy to a boil.

  5. Let it cool slightly before using it to simmer your hash or minced meat.

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 + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bones, trimmings, and gristles
Release gelatin and meaty flavor into the water as they simmer, giving the gravy body and savour.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth to the stock as they simmer.
Browning
Colours the gravy brown and adds flavour for brown meat.
Flour
Thickens the gravy for white meat, giving it body as it heats.

The step that matters

Remove the fat from the top. Fat that is left on the cooled stock will float and make the gravy greasy and heavy on the palate. Lifting off the solidified fat leaves a cleaner, more balanced sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, lemon, thyme, marjoram, allspice, pepper, mushroom):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, lemon, thyme, marjoram, allspice, pepper, mushroom. 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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