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A Gravy Without Meat

A savory gravy made with onion, butter, flour, allspice, sweet herbs, water, browning, ketchup, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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A Gravy Without Meat

Why it works: Allspice and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A Gravy Without Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Slice the onion and place it in a saucepan with the butter.

  2. Sprinkle in the flour and toss until the onion is browned.

  3. Add the allspice and sweet herbs, then pour in the water.

  4. Simmer for 30 minutes.

  5. If the gravy is not thick enough, add more flour.

Finish and season

  1. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

  2. Stir in browning and ketchup, then season with salt and pepper.

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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
Adds fat and richness, helping the onion brown and carrying flavour through the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as it cooks, giving the gravy body and a smooth texture.
Onion
Browns in the butter and flour, adding savoury depth and sweetness to the gravy.
Ketchup
Adds tang and sweetness, rounding out the savoury flavour of the gravy.

The step that matters

Toss the onion in the flour until browned. Browning the onion and flour in butter builds deeper flavour and colour through the Maillard reaction. Pale, underbrowned onion gives a flat-tasting gravy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, allspice, ketchup, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, allspice, ketchup, 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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