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Brown Gravy

A savory gravy made with wheatmeal, butter, eschalots, bay leaves, pepper, salt, mace, lemon juice, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By T. R. Allinson · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 9 ingredients
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Brown Gravy

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Brown Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the roux

  1. Put a tablespoonful of butter or olive oil into a frying-pan or saucepan and heat until hot.

  2. Dredge the pan in a tablespoonful of Allinson fine wheatmeal and brown it.

  3. Melt 1 oz. butter in a frying-pan over the fire.

  4. Stir in 1 oz. Allinson fine wheatmeal and keep stirring until it turns brown.

  5. Brown 2 tablespoonfuls of Allinson fine wheatmeal with 1 oz. butter.

Make the sauce

  1. Add boiling water, pepper, and salt to taste.

  2. Add a little mushroom or walnut ketchup if desired.

  3. Gradually stir in enough boiling water to reach a cream thickness.

  4. Add lemon juice, mace, pepper, and salt to taste, and simmer for 20 minutes.

  5. Add enough water to reach a cream thickness.

  6. Add chopped eschalots, sliced lemon, bay leaves, pepper, and salt.

  7. Simmer for 15 to 20 minutes.

  8. If the sauce is lumpy, strain it through a gravy-strainer.

  9. Strain, return the sauce to the saucepan, and boil it up before serving.

Serve

  1. Remove the mace and pour the sauce over onions.

  2. Serve with vegetables or savouries.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

122Calories
1 gProtein
12 gFat
6 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Bay Leaf1 leaf (0.6g)2
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By T. R. Allinson. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Mace + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,315 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Wheatmeal
Browned in fat to form a roux that thickens the sauce and adds a nutty flavour.
Butter
Carries the flour and browns with it, adding richness and flavour to the sauce.
Eschalots
Add savoury, aromatic flavour as the sauce simmers.
Lemon juice
Adds a bright acidity that balances the rich, browned flour.

The step that matters

Browning the flour. Flour cooked in fat must be stirred constantly until it turns brown. Too little heat leaves a raw, pasty taste, and too much scorches it and gives a bitter flavour. Adding the water gradually prevents lumps.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, lemon):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, lemon. 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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