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Gravy Stock

A beef stock made with bacon or ham, thin beef, vegetables, herbs, spices, and anchovy, simmered until reduced.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Gravy Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. In a stewpan, lay the slice of bacon or ham.

  2. Add the thinly cut beef on top of the bacon.

  3. Add the sliced carrot, onion, crust of bread, sweet herbs, mace, cloves, nutmeg, and whole pepper.

Cook the stock

  1. Cover and set on a slow fire for 5-6 minutes.

  2. Pour in the beef stock, cover tightly, and let it boil softly until half is reduced.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Carrot + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Browns slowly in the pan and gives the stock its meaty, savoury flavour.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth as it softens and releases its juices.
Carrot
Contributes natural sweetness and body to the stock as it cooks down.
Beef stock
Supplies the liquid that is gently reduced to concentrate the flavour.
Bacon or ham
Adds fat and salty, smoky flavour that carries through the stock.

The step that matters

Let it boil softly until half is reduced. A gentle simmer concentrates flavour without clouding the stock; a hard boil can make it cloudy and over-reduce it before the flavours have fully developed.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, beef, carrot, onion, bread, clove, nutmeg. 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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