Skip to main content
Main

Onion Gravy

A savory gravy made from onions, butter, broth, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and mushroom 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 ↓

Onion Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the onions

  1. Peel and slice the onions.

  2. In a quart saucepan, melt the butter over low heat.

  3. Add the onions and cook until browned.

  4. Pour in the broth.

  5. Boil until the onions are tender.

  6. Strain the broth.

Finish the gravy

  1. Mince the onions finely.

  2. Thicken the sauce with flour and butter.

  3. Season the sauce with pepper and salt.

  4. Add the minced onions.

  5. Simmer for 5 minutes.

  6. If using water instead of broth, add mushroom catsup and port wine or ale before the final boil.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  2. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Sweetness and savoury depth as they brown and soften.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the onions brown in the pan.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, lightly bodied gravy.
Broth
Provides the main liquid and savoury flavour of the gravy.

The step that matters

Cook the onions until browned. Browning over low heat develops sweetness and deep colour through the Maillard reaction and caramelisation. Rushing this over high heat can scorch the onions and leave a bitter taste, while stopping too early leaves the gravy pale and flat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, mushroom, port wine. 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