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Sauce

Brown Sauce II

A brown sauce made with butter, carrot, onion, herbs, peppercorns, flour, and brown stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Fannie Merritt Farmer · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley 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 ↓

Brown Sauce II

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cook butter with carrot, onion, bay leaf, thyme, parsley, and peppercorns until brown, stirring constantly and taking care that the butter does not burn.

  2. Add flour, and when well browned, add stock gradually.

  3. Bring to a boiling point.

  4. Strain the sauce.

  5. Season with salt and pepper.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

639Calories
15 gProtein
13 gFat
114 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 9 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Carrot1 medium (61g)25
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Thyme1 tsp dried (1.4g)4
Bay Leaf1 leaf (0.6g)2
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

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

By Fannie Merritt Farmer. 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.

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

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

  4. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Browns with the aromatics and carries their flavor into the sauce as a fat base.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when browned and mixed with fat and stock.
Brown stock
Forms the liquid base that the browned roux thickens into sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the butter and flour. Butter that burns turns bitter and dark, spoiling the sauce's flavor, so it must be cooked over steady stirring until brown but not burnt. Flour browned well in the fat develops nutty flavor and color before the stock is added, and adding stock gradually keeps lumps from forming.

Swap the onion

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

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

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