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Stock for Gravy

A savory stock made from beef, fish, vegetables, herbs, and wine, used as a base for gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stock for Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the beef base

  1. In a gravy pot, place the thinly cut beef without any fat and cover it. Heat gently, shaking often, until the juices are absorbed back into the meat.

  2. Add enough water to cover the meat and let it simmer.

  3. Add a small amount of water, herbs, onion, spices, and a bit of ham. Simmer until rich.

Make the vegetable and fish stock

  1. In a casserole, melt the butter and add carrots, onions, parsley, thyme, cloves, bay leaves, fish, salt, and pepper.

  2. Pour in the white wine and broth, cover, and simmer until everything is mashed. Strain through a fine sieve.

Make the mushroom stock

  1. In another casserole, stew mushrooms, parsley, and chives in water until flavorful, then strain.

Combine and serve

  1. Combine both strained liquids and heat together.

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the main meaty flavor and body of the stock.
Butter
Carries aromatic flavors from the vegetables and herbs into the stock.
Carrots
Add sweetness and depth to the stock's flavor.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aromatic depth as they cook down.
Fish
Adds savory depth and body to the stock as it breaks down.
Mushrooms
Add earthy umami flavor to the stock.

The step that matters

Simmer the vegetable and fish stock until everything is mashed. Cooking must be long enough to break down the fish and vegetables so their flavor and body reach the liquid. Too short leaves the stock thin and weak; boiling hard can make it cloudy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, meat, ham, butter, carrot, parsley, thyme):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, meat, ham, butter, carrot, 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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