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Another Brown Onion Sauce

A savory sauce of finely minced onions, butter, veal gravy, cream, salt, and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Another Brown Onion Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the onions

  1. Peel, slice, and mince the onions.

  2. Stew the onions in 2–3 ounces of butter over a gentle fire until reduced to a pulp.

Thicken and season

  1. Stir in a dessertspoonful of flour and shake the stewpan over the fire for 3–4 minutes.

  2. Pour in enough veal gravy to leave the sauce tolerably thick.

  3. Season with salt and cayenne.

  4. Skim off the fat, press the sauce through a sieve, and heat in a clean stewpan.

  5. Stir in 1/4 pint of rich boiling cream.

  6. Serve immediately.

Second method

  1. Peel and trim the onions, mince them, and boil in water for 5 minutes; drain.

  2. Stew the boiled onions in 1–2 ounces of butter until dry and tender.

  3. Stir in béchamel to reach thick pea-soup consistency.

  4. Pass the sauce through a strainer, pressing onions.

  5. Heat the sauce afresh without boiling.

  6. Add a small half-teaspoonful of pounded sugar if desired.

  7. Serve.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

203Calories
2 gProtein
17 gFat
11 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
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Vealnot 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 Eliza Acton. 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

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

  4. Cream + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

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

Cream and onion barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 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

Onions
Slow stewing softens them and draws out their sweetness, forming the sauce's body.
Butter
Fat that gently cooks the onions and adds richness and flavour.
Veal gravy
Savoury liquid that gives the sauce its depth and body.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the finished sauce.
Flour (in the method)
Starch that thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter and onions.

The step that matters

Stewing the onions until reduced to a pulp. Gentle heat softens the onions and draws out their sweetness. Too much heat can brown them, adding bitterness and colour the pale sauce should not have.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Onionthe original
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, cream, butter. 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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