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Gravy Made Without Meat

A brown gravy made with butter, flour, onion, pepper, salt, water, mushroom ketchup, and Port wine, without meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Gravy Made Without Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the roux

  1. Knead flour into butter until well combined.

  2. Fry the mixture in a frying pan over medium heat, stirring constantly until it turns a nice brown color.

Simmer and finish

  1. Pour in boiling water and add minced onion, whole pepper, and salt.

  2. Transfer to a small saucepan, cover, and simmer for a short time.

  3. Strain the mixture and stir in mushroom ketchup and Port wine.

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

Butter
Enriches the roux and carries flavor, while browning adds a toasted, nutty taste.
Flour
Cooked with the butter, it thickens the gravy as it absorbs liquid.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens in the liquid.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds deep, savory umami flavor to the gravy.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, acidity and fruity depth to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Browning the roux. Stirring constantly over medium heat keeps the flour and butter from scorching while it turns brown. Scorched flour tastes bitter and cannot be fixed, while properly browned roux gives the gravy its color and toasty flavor.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

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