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Gravy for Roast Meat, or Plain Hashes

A savory gravy made from beef and mutton trimmings, carrots, onions, parsley, and spices, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Gravy for Roast Meat, or Plain Hashes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the beef and mutton trimmings in warm water.

  2. Place the trimmings in a pan with a little water at the bottom.

  3. Add carrots, onions, parsley, peppercorns, salt, bay leaf, garlic, and allspice.

  4. Stew until the meat is browned.

Make the gravy

  1. Remove the fat.

  2. Add boiling water to the pan.

  3. Simmer gently for 3 hours.

  4. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve into a pan.

  5. Take the gravy without fat when ready to use.

  6. Boil the gravy a little longer for stronger 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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Parsley + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 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

Scrag end of beef
Provides the meat flavour and gelatin that give the gravy body as it simmers.
Trimmings of mutton
Adds richer, more savoury meat flavour to the stock as it simmers.
Carrots
Contribute sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and depth as they soften and release their flavour into the liquid.

The step that matters

Removing the fat. Fat that is not skimmed off floats on the surface and makes the gravy greasy. Removing it before straining and reheating keeps the gravy clear and smooth.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, mutton, carrot, onion, parsley, clove, allspice):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mutton, carrot, onion, parsley, clove, 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.

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