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Sauce

Brown Gravy SAUCE—Without Meat

A brown gravy sauce made with butter, onions, anchovies, ketchup, pickles, spices, and optional ale.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Brown Gravy SAUCE—Without Meat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add flour gradually while shaking from a dredge box.

  3. Stir in the sliced onions and chopped anchovies.

  4. Add ketchup, mushroom, walnut, or lemon pickle, salt, pepper, and mace.

  5. Simmer the mixture together for fifteen minutes.

  6. If desired, stir in ale before serving.

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. 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. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and a rounded, savory flavor to the base of the gravy.
Onions
Softens as it cooks, adding sweetness and savory depth to the sauce.
Anchovies
Melt into the sauce, adding a deep savory note without tasting fishy.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity, giving the gravy a richer, tangier color and flavor.
Mushroom, walnut, or lemon pickle
Contributes acidity and tangy, concentrated flavor to balance the richness.

The step that matters

Add flour gradually while shaking from a dredge box. Flour thickens the gravy as its starch swells in the hot fat and liquid. Adding it slowly and stirring or shaking it in keeps it dispersed, which prevents clumps and gives a smooth, evenly thickened sauce.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, ketchup, mushroom, 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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