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Rich Deep-coloured Veal Gravy

A rich gravy made by simmering veal and ham with broth, parsley, mushrooms, green onions, and optional mace, peppercorns, celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rich Deep-coloured Veal Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. In a large thick stewpan, lay the sliced ham.

  2. Place the veal on top of the ham.

Make the gravy

  1. Pour in ½ pint of broth and heat over a brisk fire until reduced.

  2. Insert a knife into the meat and reduce the heat to stew gently until a glaze forms.

  3. Shake the stewpan frequently and watch the gravy to prevent burning.

  4. When the gravy is a deep amber color, add enough boiling broth to cover the meat.

  5. Add the parsley, mushrooms, and green onions.

  6. Optionally, add mace, white peppercorns, and celery.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + celerytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,006 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean veal
Provides the meat that becomes tender and gives the gravy its body as it stews.
Undressed ham
Lays a savory, salty base on the pan that flavors the gravy as it reduces.
Broth
Carries the meat in a stewing liquid that reduces to a concentrated, glossy gravy.
Parsley
Adds a fresh, herbal aroma that brightens the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Reducing to a deep amber glaze. Reducing the broth and meat juices slowly concentrates flavor and forms a glaze on the pan. If the heat is too high or the pan is not stirred, the sugars and proteins scorch and the gravy turns bitter.

Swap the mace

The recipe marks mace as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, veal, meat, parsley, mushroom, onion, celery):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, meat, parsley, mushroom, onion, celery. 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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