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Brown Onion Gravy

A savory gravy made from browned onions, butter, flour, broth, wine, mushroom ketchup, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Brown Onion Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Peel and slice the onions.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter over low heat.

  3. Add the onions and cook, shaking occasionally, until lightly browned.

  4. Gradually stir in the flour.

  5. Add the broth, pepper, and salt.

  6. Bring to a boil for a few minutes.

  7. Stir in the wine and mushroom ketchup.

  8. Add lemon juice or vinegar to taste.

  9. Strain the sauce through a sieve.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  3. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  4. Port wine + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Browned slowly, they provide the sweet, deep flavour that defines the gravy.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth gravy as it cooks.
Butter
Carries the onions as they brown and adds richness to the sauce.
Broth
Forms the liquid base of the gravy.
Claret or port wine
Adds depth and a fruity, slightly acidic note to the sauce.

The step that matters

Brown the onions until lightly browned. Onions cooked gently until they brown develop sweetness and savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction and caramelisation. Pale onions leave the gravy tasting flat, while over-darkened onions turn it bitter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, pepper, port wine, mushroom, ketchup, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, port wine, mushroom, ketchup, lemon. 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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