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To Make Gravy Without Meat

A savory gravy made from onions, butter, water, beer, spices, and aromatics, finished by straining and removing fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

To Make Gravy Without Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Fry the sliced onions in butter until brown.

  2. Add the fried onions to a saucepan with water, beer, peppercorns, salt, lemon peel, cloves, mace, walnut pickle, mushroom catsup, soy sauce, essence of anchovy, sweet herbs, and toasted bread.

  3. Simmer all ingredients in a covered saucepan for 20 minutes.

Strain and skim

  1. Strain the mixture and let it cool, then remove the fat.

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. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Clove + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Browned in butter to build a deep, savory sweetness as the base of the gravy.
Butter
Carries the browning of the onions and adds richness and fat to the gravy.
Beer
Adds liquid and a malty, slightly bitter depth that balances the sweetness of the onions.
Walnut pickle
Contributes a tangy, concentrated savory flavor to the liquid.
Mushroom catsup
Adds concentrated umami and savory depth in place of meat stock.
Essence of anchovy
Adds a salty, savory depth that rounds out the umami of the other flavorings.

The step that matters

Browning the onions in butter. Onions must be fried until deeply brown, because the Maillard reaction and caramelization create the roasted, savory flavor that the gravy depends on. Pale onions leave the gravy tasting flat and thin.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, beer, lemon, clove, walnut, mushroom):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, beer, lemon, clove, walnut, mushroom. 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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