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Gravies and Sauces

A savory gravy made from celery, herbs, onion, butter, flour, bone stock, and pickled accompaniments, served with toasted bread sippets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Gravies and Sauces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Combine celery and herbs in a pot, cover, and simmer gently for 30 minutes.

  2. Heat butter in a stew pan and fry the onion for 2 minutes until slightly colored.

  3. Stir in enough flour to form a stiff paste, then gradually mix in the gravy from the bones.

  4. Let it boil gently for 15 minutes until it thickens to a cream-like consistency.

  5. Strain the mixture through a sieve into a basin.

  6. Return the strained mixture to the stew pan.

Season and serve

  1. Season with pickled onions, walnuts, gherkins, or capers.

  2. Add mushroom ketchup or pickled liquor.

  3. Cover the bottom of a serving dish with toasted bread sippets cut into triangles.

  4. Garnish with fried bread sippets.

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. Lemon + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Celery + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together456 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Celery
Gives the gravy its main flavour and, once simmered and strained, body and a vegetable base.
Flour
Forms a stiff paste with the butter that thickens the gravy as it boils.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps soften and lightly colour the onion.
Mushroom ketchup or pickled liquor
Adds savoury depth and acidity to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Boiling the flour-based gravy. Flour thickens only when it is cooked through at a gentle boil. Stirring it in smoothly before adding liquid and boiling gently for the full time prevents lumps and a raw, floury taste.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, lemon, butter, flour, mushroom, tarragon, bread):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, lemon, butter, flour, mushroom, tarragon, bread. 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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