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Sauce

Sharp Brown Sauce

A sauce made with onion, cider vinegar, water, tomato ketchup, pepper, salt, melted butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Sharp Brown Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the chopped onion, cider vinegar, water, tomato ketchup, pepper, salt, and melted butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the sifted flour.

  3. Boil the mixture until it thickens.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells and sets when heated.
Melted butter
Adds fat and a rich, smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
Cider vinegar
Adds the sharp acidity that gives this sauce its tang.
Tomato ketchup
Contributes sweetness, tomato flavour and a reddish-brown colour.
Chopped onion
Adds savoury aroma and background flavour as it cooks in the liquid.

The step that matters

Boil until thickened. Flour only thickens fully when the starch is heated to a boil. Stopping early leaves the sauce thin and can leave a raw, floury taste.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, cider, vinegar, ketchup, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, cider, vinegar, ketchup, 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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