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Rich Brown Gravy

A savory gravy made from finely chopped meat, butter, onion, herbs, and optional seasonings, thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Rich Brown Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the meat

  1. Chop the meat and ham (if using) finely.

  2. Melt the butter in a stew-pan.

  3. Add the sliced onion and chopped meat. Cover the pan.

  4. Cook on low heat for a few minutes, stirring to prevent sticking, until the meat is browned.

  5. Gradually add the water. Add any bones, chicken heads, or feet you have.

  6. Bring the mixture to a boil. Skim off any foam.

Simmer and strain

  1. Add the toasted bread, herbs, lemon peel, allspice, and black pepper. Cover the pan.

  2. Simmer until the liquid reduces by half and the bones are white and dry.

  3. Strain the gravy. Let the gravy cool.

  4. Skim off any fat.

Thicken and finish

  1. Thicken the gravy with butter and flour.

  2. Blend the poultry or game livers with butter, cayenne, nutmeg, port wine, mushroom ketchup, and lemon juice. Stir the blended mixture into the gravy.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Winter savory + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together863 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Winter savory + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together616 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Browning in butter builds the savory base flavor of the gravy.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, adding depth to the gravy's flavor.
Bones
Release gelatin and flavor into the water during long simmering, giving body to the gravy.
Butter
Combined with flour to thicken the gravy and add richness.
Flour
Thickens the gravy when cooked with butter, giving it body.

The step that matters

Brown the meat before adding water. Browning builds deep flavor through the Maillard reaction. Meat that is pale and steamed will give a weak, flat gravy, so let it colour fully in the butter first.

“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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