Skip to main content
Main

Brown Gravy Without Meat

A savory brown gravy made without meat, using water, ale, pickles, catsup, anchovies, onions, spices, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Brown Gravy Without Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Combine water and ale in a pot.

  2. Add walnut pickle, mushroom pickle, catsup, anchovies, shredded onions, salt, mace, and whole pepper to the pot.

  3. Melt butter in a separate pan and mix in flour until browned.

  4. Add the browned flour mixture to the pot and boil for 20 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the gravy and serve.

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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Walnut + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together763 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Fat that carries flavor and, with the flour, forms a roux that thickens the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as it cooks, and browning it in butter adds toasty flavor and color.
Anchovies
Add savory depth and umami that build the gravy's meaty flavor without meat.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic flavor as they cook down into the liquid.
Walnut pickle
Contributes tangy, savory depth and dark color to the gravy.
Mushroom pickle
Adds earthy, savory umami that gives the gravy a meat-like richness.

The step that matters

Browning the flour in butter. Flour cooked in fat must be stirred until it is evenly browned. Too little heat leaves a raw, pasty taste, while scorching gives a bitter flavor that carries into the gravy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, mushroom, onion, pepper, butter, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, mushroom, onion, 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.

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes