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Made Gravies and Sauces

A basic gravy made by simmering meat trimmings, bones, and aromatics in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Made Gravies and Sauces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the trimmings and bones in a large pot, layering with beef at the bottom, followed by mutton and bacon or ham.

  2. Add carrot, onion, mace, cloves, black and white pepper, sweet herbs, and any small pieces of veal.

Simmer

  1. Cover the pot and set it over low heat for 6‑7 minutes, shaking it often.

  2. Dredge in a little flour and pour in enough water to cover the ingredients.

  3. Cover the pot again and let it simmer for several hours until the gravy is rich.

Finish

  1. Season with coarse sea salt to taste, strain, and serve.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Trimmings of beef, veal, or mutton
Release gelatin and meaty flavour into the liquid as they simmer, giving body to the gravy.
Bones of cold joints of meat or uncooked bones
Release collagen that converts to gelatin during long simmering, thickening the gravy and adding richness.
2 slices of bacon or ham
Adds smoky, savoury fat and salty depth to the stock.
Flour for dredging
Lightly thickens the liquid so the gravy has a fuller texture.

The step that matters

Long, gentle simmer. Simmering rather than boiling keeps the broth clear and lets collagen from bones and trimmings slowly dissolve into gelatin, which gives the gravy body. Boiling vigorously emulsifies fat into cloudiness and can make the liquid greasy and harsh.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, meat, ham, carrot, onion, clove, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, meat, ham, carrot, onion, clove, pepper. 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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