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Brown Gravy

A simple gravy made with fat, flour, boiling water, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Brown Gravy

Why it works: Flour and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Brown Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the roux

  1. Remove fat from the pan, leaving 3 tablespoons.

  2. Add 3 tablespoons of flour and stir until well browned.

Add liquid and finish

  1. Gradually pour in 1½ cups of boiling water while stirring constantly.

  2. Bring to a boil, season with salt and pepper, then strain.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Fat
Carries flavor from the pan and forms the base of the roux with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into gravy as its starch swells, and browns to add color and flavor.

The step that matters

Gradually pour in the boiling water while stirring constantly. Flour starch clumps when hit with a large amount of liquid at once. Adding the water slowly while stirring lets each portion blend into the roux, giving a smooth gravy.

“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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