Skip to main content
Main

Lyonnaise Sauce for Cutlets, Etc

A tomato and onion sauce with gravy, lemon juice, and butter, served hot over cutlets.

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

Why it works: Tomato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,633 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lyonnaise Sauce for Cutlets, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Make the tomato base

  1. Remove the stalks from the tomatoes and halve them.

  2. Place the tomatoes in a saucepan with the gravy, salt, and cayenne, and simmer gently until tender.

  3. Press the cooked tomatoes through a fine sieve.

Cook the onions and combine

  1. Finely slice the onions and fry them in butter until soft and lightly browned.

  2. Combine the onion, tomato pulp, brown gravy, and lemon juice in a saucepan.

  3. Stir gently over heat for 3-4 minutes.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Onion + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,646 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

Ripe tomatoes
Provide the main body and fresh tomato flavour of the sauce once cooked and sieved.
Spanish onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth when softened and lightly browned in butter.
Good gravy
Adds meaty savouriness and liquid that helps the tomatoes cook to tenderness.
Good brown gravy
Adds deeper savoury flavour and colour to the finished sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the sweetness of the onions.

The step that matters

Frying the onions until soft and lightly browned. Onions cooked too quickly over high heat can scorch and turn bitter before they soften. Gentle heat lets their natural sugars develop a mellow sweetness that suits the sauce.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, butter. 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

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes