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A Cheap Anr Coop Gravy

A simple gravy made with onions, butter, bread, meat or bone, herbs, water, salt, pepper, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

A Cheap Anr Coop Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Fry the onions in butter until nicely browned.

  2. Toast the slice of bread until hard and brown, but not burnt.

  3. Stew the onions, bread, bits of meat or bone, herbs, and enough water until the gravy is rich and thick.

  4. Add salt and pepper to taste, then strain the mixture.

Finish

  1. Boil the strained gravy with butter and flour until combined.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  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. Bread + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  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

Onions
Browned in butter, they build deep savoury flavour and sweetness as the gravy stews.
Bread
Toasted until brown, it adds roasted aroma and body, helping thicken the gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving the finished gravy a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Cooked with butter and boiled in, it thickens the strained gravy into a smooth sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the onions until nicely browned. Browning drives the Maillard reaction and caramelisation, which create the savoury, deep colour and flavour the whole gravy depends on. Pale onions give a flat, washed-out taste.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, meat, pepper, flour. 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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