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Sauce

Another Brown Onion Sauce

A sauce made from minced onions, butter, veal gravy, salt, cayenne, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Another Brown Onion Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Mince the onions and stew them in butter over medium heat until well colored.

  2. Stir in 2 teaspoons of flour and cook for 3 to 4 minutes.

  3. Pour in enough veal gravy to keep the sauce thick, season with salt and cayenne, and serve.

Finish smooth

  1. For a smoother sauce, press through a sieve, mix with boiling cream, and heat gently before serving.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Onion + vealtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

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

  4. Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Butter + vealtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 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

White onions
Break down into sweet, deeply colored bulk that forms the body of the sauce.
Butter
Carries the onions as they stew and adds rich flavor and fat.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the onion and butter.
Veal gravy
Supplies savory depth and liquid to bring the sauce to a pourable thickness.
Boiling cream
Adds richness and a silkier texture when mixed in for a smoother sauce.

The step that matters

Stew the onions until well colored. Onions need slow, moderate heat in butter so their sugars brown gradually, building flavor without scorching. Pale or burnt onions will change the sauce's taste and color.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, veal, cream):

  1. Onionthe original
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, veal, cream. 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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