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Brown Sauce

A thickened sauce made from flour and gravy, flavored with lemon, port, and optional ingredients.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Brown Sauce

Why it works: Lemon and basil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,823 recipes mention both. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Brown Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine flour with enough gravy to dry it up, stirring well.

  2. Gradually add the remaining gravy, stirring continuously.

  3. Set the saucepan over low heat and let it simmer gently for 15-20 minutes.

  4. Skim off any fat that rises to the surface.

  5. Once thickened to the consistency of cream, strain the sauce through a fine sieve.

Add the flavorings

  1. Pound the liver with butter.

  2. Strain the liver.

  3. Stir the strained liver into the sauce.

  4. Add mushroom ketchup, lemon juice, lemon rind, port, and cayenne pepper.

  5. Adjust flavor with basil, burnet wine, or tarragon vinegar if desired.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lemon + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,823 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Pepper + basiltop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together12,525 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks, giving the sauce body.
Gravy
Forms the liquid base that carries all the other flavors.
Liver (in the method)
Adds richness and depth to the sauce's savory flavor.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds deep savory, umami flavor to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savory sauce.
Port or claret
Adds wine sweetness and aroma that round out the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmering after the flour is added. Simmering gently lets the flour starch swell and thicken the sauce evenly. Boiling hard or leaving it unstirred can scorch the bottom or leave lumps, and skimming removes fat that would otherwise make the sauce greasy.

Flavor stand-ins for the basil

The recipe marks basil as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, mushroom, lemon, pepper):

  1. Thymebetter flavor fit
  2. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  3. Marjorambetter flavor fit
  4. Basilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, mushroom, lemon, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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