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Sweet Sour Gravy for Meats

A simple gravy made with water, molasses, vinegar, and flour, served warm with potato dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,429 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Sweet Sour Gravy for Meats

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. In a saucepan, combine 2 cups of water, 1 tablespoon of molasses, 1 tablespoon of vinegar, and 1 tablespoon of flour.

  2. Stir until the flour is smooth and well mixed.

  3. Heat the mixture over medium heat until it thickens.

Serve

  1. Serve warm with potato dumplings.

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. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Molasses + vinegartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Vinegar + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,652 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

Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth gravy as it heats.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and deep color to the gravy.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness of the molasses.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the liquid. Flour clumps if it hits hot liquid unmixed. Whisking it smooth before heating lets the starch disperse evenly, so the gravy thickens without lumps.

“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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