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Gravy or Sauce for a Goose

A gravy or sauce made with onion, butter, flour, brown gravy, mustard, port wine, cayenne pepper, and salt for goose.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Gravy or Sauce for a Goose

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Brown the chopped onion in the butter in a small saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for 5-6 minutes until it begins to brown.

  3. Gradually pour in the brown gravy and let it simmer for 15 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture.

  5. Bring the strained mixture back to a boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the mustard mixed with port wine, and season with cayenne and salt if needed.

  2. Do not let the sauce boil after adding the wine.

  3. Serve it very 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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Onion
Browns in butter to build a sweet, savory base flavor for the gravy.
Butter
Carries the onion's browning and adds richness and fat to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter and onion.
Brown gravy
Forms the liquid body of the sauce and carries the main savory flavor.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Do not let the sauce boil after adding the wine. Boiling after the port is added can drive off its alcohol and aroma and dull its delicate flavor, and it can also make the mustard taste harsh. Keeping the sauce hot but below a boil preserves the wine's character.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, mustard, port wine, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, mustard, port wine, pepper. 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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