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Sage and Onion Sauce

A savory sauce made with onions, sage, gravy, pepper, salt, bread crumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sage and Onion Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Simmer the chopped onions and sage in 1 cup of gravy over low heat in a saucepan.

  2. After 10 to 15 minutes, add the pepper, salt, and bread crumbs.

  3. Toss the bread crumbs into the boiling gravy and let it simmer for 2 to 3 minutes.

  4. Stir in the melted butter and let the mixture simmer for an additional 2 to 3 minutes.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Soften during simmering and add sweetness and body to the sauce.
Bread crumbs
Thicken the gravy as they absorb liquid and soak up the simmering broth.
Melted butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished sauce.
Sage
Contributes its herbal, aromatic flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the bread crumbs. Crumbs added to boiling gravy can clump and thicken unevenly. Adding them gradually while stirring, then simmering gently, lets them hydrate and blend into a smooth sauce.

Swap the onion

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

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

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