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The Gravy

A gravy made from beef, giblets, and port wine, served with red currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Port wine and red currant work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

The Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Take the giblets and a piece of beef.

Make the gravy

  1. Add 2 cups of port wine and cook to make a good gravy.

Serve

  1. Pour some gravy through the body of the swan when serving.

  2. Heat red currant jelly and serve it alongside.

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. Port wine + red curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Beef + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together626 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Beef + red curranttop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together85 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Giblets
Add rich, savoury flavour to the gravy.
Beef
Provides a meaty flavour base for the gravy.
Port wine
Adds fruity sweetness and depth of flavour as it reduces.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and tartness to balance the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Cooking the port wine. Simmering the port concentrates its flavour and drives off raw alcohol. Cooking it long enough keeps the gravy rounded rather than harsh or sharp-tasting.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, port wine):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Plumfits about as well
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, port wine. 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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