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Gravy for Roast Meat

A simple gravy made from roast meat drippings, salt, water, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,594 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Gravy for Roast Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the basic gravy

  1. Mix the salt with ½ cup of boiling water.

  2. Drop this mixture onto the brown parts of the meat to enhance browning.

  3. Place a dish under the meat to catch drippings.

  4. As the meat cools, the fat will float to the surface; carefully remove it.

  5. Warm the collected gravy and pour it into the serving dish.

Make additional gravy

  1. For additional gravy, soak the brown bits in boiling water overnight.

  2. The next day, boil the mixture for 2-3 minutes, then strain it.

  3. For roast meat, mix 2 tablespoons of the strained mixture with ½ cup of boiling water and a little salt.

  4. For roasted veal, mix 3 tablespoons of the strained mixture with ½ cup of thin melted butter.

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. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Meat + vealtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,890 recipes

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

  3. Butter + vealtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Brown bits from roast meat or poultry
Concentrated meat flavour and colour that dissolve into the liquid to form the gravy base.
Boiling water
Dissolves the drippings and brown bits, carrying their flavour into a pourable gravy.
Thin melted butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the veal gravy a smoother mouthfeel and softer flavour.

The step that matters

Carefully removing the fat as the meat cools. Fat floats to the surface as drippings cool, and leaving too much of it makes the gravy greasy and heavy on the palate, so it should be skimmed off completely.

“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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