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Gravy for Hashes, Etc

A savory gravy made from beef bones, vegetables, and a roux, used to accompany hash.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Gravy for Hashes, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break the bones into small pieces and slice the vegetables.

  2. Put the bones, trimmings, water, bouquet garni, salt, and pepper into a saucepan.

Make the gravy

  1. Simmer for 2 hours, then strain the mixture.

Thicken and serve

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour, and fry until brown.

  2. Stir in the strained gravy and bring to a boil.

  3. Season to taste and use as required.

  4. Optionally, add a little ketchup, Harvey sauce, or other sauce if desired.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Bones and trimmings
Release gelatin and meat flavour into the water during long simmering, giving body to the gravy.
Butter
Carries flavour and enriches the gravy, and is the fat in which the flour is cooked.
Flour
Starch that thickens the gravy once cooked in the hot butter.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the stock as it simmers.

The step that matters

Frying the flour in butter until brown. Cooking flour in fat coats the starch grains so they blend smoothly into the liquid, and browning adds nutty flavour. Stop before it burns, since scorched flour tastes bitter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, carrot, parsley, thyme, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, carrot, parsley, thyme, pepper, butter, flour. 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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