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To Heighten the Colour and the Flavour of Gravies

A method to add color and flavor to gravies using mushroom pressings, soy sauce, wine, and thickening agents.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

To Heighten the Colour and the Flavour of Gravies

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Colour and flavour

  1. Add thick mushroom pressings, soy sauce, cavice, or Harvey's sauce to gravies for colour.

  2. For flavour, add a glass of claret or port wine.

  3. Brown 1 ounce of vermicelli or rasped cocoa-nut in a small amount of butter, then stew it in the gravy for 30 to 60 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture out.

Thicken and finish

  1. Use arrow-root, rice-flour, or browned common flour to thicken gravies instead of flour and butter.

  2. Ensure no fat is visible on the gravies before serving.

  3. If fat cannot be skimmed, let the gravy cool to congeal the fat for easy removal.

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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,515 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Mushroom + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cocoa + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together93 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Thick mushroom pressings
Adds deep brown colour and savoury, earthy flavour to the gravy.
Soy sauce
Adds savoury depth and darkens the gravy's colour.
Claret or port wine
Adds body and a fruity, slightly acidic richness to the flavour.
Vermicelli or rasped cocoa-nut
Browned in butter and stewed in the gravy, it adds toasted aroma and dark colour.
Arrow-root or rice-flour or common flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the spoon rather than running thin.

The step that matters

Strain the mixture out. Stewed vermicelli or cocoa-nut releases particles and oils into the gravy, so straining is needed to leave a smooth liquid with only the intended colour and flavour.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mushroom, sauce, port wine, butter, rice):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, sauce, port wine, butter, rice. 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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