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Gravy, Onion

A savory onion gravy made with butter, flour, stock, ketchup, claret, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Gravy, Onion

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Fry the sliced onions in butter until slightly browned.

  2. Drain the onions and mix flour smoothly with the remaining butter.

  3. Gradually add stock and return the onions to the saucepan.

  4. Simmer gently until the onions are soft.

  5. Season with pepper and salt, then pass through a fine sieve.

  6. Bring to a boil, adding ketchup, claret, and lemon juice.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Spanish onions
Provide the main body and sweetness as they soften and brown in butter.
Butter
Carries the frying of the onions and adds richness to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth gravy when mixed with butter.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that the onions and flour are cooked in.
Claret
Adds acidity and depth of flavour when brought to a boil with the gravy.

The step that matters

Mix the flour smoothly with the butter, then add the stock gradually. Flour clumps if added to hot liquid all at once. Working it into fat first and adding stock slowly lets the starch disperse evenly, so the gravy thickens smooth rather than lumpy.

Swap the onion

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

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

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