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Good Beef or Veal Gravy

A rich gravy made from browned beef or veal, simmered with onion, carrot, herbs, mace, peppercorns, and thickened with arrowroot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley 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 ↓

Good Beef or Veal Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. In a pan, melt the butter and lightly fry the beef or veal until browned.

  2. Drain the meat from the fat and place it in a small thick stewpan.

Make the gravy

  1. Pour in the boiling water and skim off any foam.

  2. Add the fried onion, sliced carrot, herbs, mace, and peppercorns.

  3. Simmer gently for 3 hours or more.

Strain and finish

  1. Strain the gravy through a sieve into a clean pan.

  2. Once cooled, remove any fat from the surface.

  3. Reheat the desired amount and thicken with arrowroot mixed with mushroom ketchup if needed.

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 + parsleytop 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. Thyme + arrowroottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together72 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsley + arrowroottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together137 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef or veal
Provides the meat flavour and collagen that gives the gravy body as it simmers.
Butter
Fat for browning the meat, adding richness and roasted flavour to the gravy.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth as it cooks into the stock.
Arrowroot
Starch that thickens the gravy into a smooth, glossy sauce when heated.

The step that matters

Skim the foam and remove surface fat. Foam left in the liquid can cloud the gravy and taste bitter, while excess fat makes it greasy. Skimming early and chilling to lift off the fat gives a cleaner, smoother result.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, onion, carrot, thyme, parsley, arrowroot. 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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