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A Rich English Brown Gravy

A savory gravy made from ham, beef, onions, spices, and optional mushrooms, simmered in water or broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

A Rich English Brown Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the meat

  1. Brown the ham lightly in a pan and remove it.

  2. In the same pan, lightly fry the neck of beef, then add it back with the ham.

  3. Brown gently and add the eschalots or onion.

Simmer and strain

  1. Pour in the boiling water or broth and bring to a boil, skimming off any scum.

  2. Add salt, cloves, mace, peppercorns, herbs, carrot, and celery.

  3. Boil softly until reduced to about 1 pint, then strain and let cool to remove fat.

  4. Reheat, adjusting seasoning with salt and flavoring as needed.

  5. Optionally, add mushrooms or morels at the beginning for extra flavor.

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 + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of beef
Breaks down into tender meat and releases gelatin and savoury flavour into the gravy during long simmering.
Ham
Adds salty, smoky depth and savoury flavour to the broth as it browns and simmers.
Eschalots or onion
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth as it softens and browns in the pan.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and body to the stock as it simmers.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum after boiling. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise when liquid first boils. Removing it keeps the gravy clear and prevents off flavours from entering the stock.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, beef, flour, pepper, onion, clove, carrot):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, beef, flour, pepper, onion, clove, carrot. 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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