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A Rich English Brown Gravy

A savory gravy made with diced ham, beef neck, onions, spices, and optional mushrooms, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove 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 ↓

A Rich English Brown Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef and ham

  1. Brown the diced ham lightly in a pan and remove it.

  2. In the same pan, lightly fry the neck of beef and place it over the removed ham.

Make the gravy

  1. Add the chopped eschalots or onion to the pan.

  2. Pour in the boiling water or broth and bring to a slow boil, skimming off any scum.

  3. Add salt, cloves, mace, peppercorns, savory herbs, carrot, and celery.

  4. Boil gently until reduced to about 1 pint.

  5. Strain the gravy and let it cool to remove fat.

Finish and serve

  1. Reheat the gravy.

  2. Adjust salt as needed.

  3. Add mushroom catsup or cayenne vinegar as desired.

  4. Optionally, add prepared mushrooms or morels at the beginning for extra flavor.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Clove + macetop 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

Neck of beef
Provides meat flavor and body as it browns and its juices enrich the gravy.
Lean ham
Adds savory, salty flavor to the stock as it browns and releases its juices.
Eschalots or onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the gravy base as it softens.
Carrot
Contributes subtle sweetness and body to the simmered stock.
Celery
Adds savory, vegetal aroma to the simmered stock.

The step that matters

Let the gravy cool to remove fat. Fat rises and sets on top as the gravy cools, so chilling and then lifting it off leaves a cleaner, less greasy gravy. Skipping this step leaves the fat in the finished sauce.

Swap the mace

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

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

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