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Sauce

Gravy or Sauce for a Goose

A brown gravy flavoured with minced onion, mustard and port wine, made to serve with 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 base

  1. In a small saucepan, brown the minced onion in butter.

  2. Once the onion begins to brown, stir in the flour.

  3. Cook for 5-6 minutes.

  4. Gradually pour in the brown gravy.

  5. Let the sauce simmer for 15 minutes.

  6. Strain the sauce.

Finish and serve

  1. Bring the sauce back to a boil.

  2. Add the mustard mixed with port wine.

  3. Season with cayenne and salt as needed.

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

  5. Serve the sauce 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

Butter
Carries the onion's browning and adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter, giving it body.
Brown gravy
Forms the savory liquid base that the sauce is built on.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor that balances the savory gravy.
Made mustard
Adds sharpness and a tangy bite that cuts through the richness.

The step that matters

Do not let the sauce boil after adding the wine. Prolonged boiling evaporates alcohol and dulls the port's delicate fruity flavor, and high heat can make the mustard taste harsh. Keeping it 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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