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To Make Gravy Without Meat

A savory gravy made from onions, water, beer, spices, and herbs, without any meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

To Make Gravy Without Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fry the sliced onions in a little butter until brown.

  2. Add the fried onions to a saucepan with water and beer.

Simmer and strain

  1. Add peppercorns, salt, lemon peel, cloves, mace, walnut pickle, mushroom catsup, soy sauce, essence of anchovy, sweet herbs, and toasted bread.

  2. Simmer all ingredients in a covered saucepan for 20 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture for use and let it cool.

  4. Remove the fat from the top before serving.

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. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Clove + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Beer + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together128 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Browning in butter builds deep, savoury sweetness and colour into the gravy base.
Beer
Adds malty, slightly bitter depth and acidity to the liquid.
Walnut pickle
Contributes a tangy, savoury, concentrated flavour in place of meat drippings.
Mushroom catsup
Adds concentrated umami savouriness to the gravy.
Essence of anchovy
Adds salty, savoury umami depth without any visible fish flavour.
Toasted bread
Its toasted crust adds roasted, browned aroma and some body to the liquid.

The step that matters

Fry the onions until brown. Browning the onions develops Maillard flavours and colour. Pale onions leave the gravy thin, bland and light in colour, so the frying stage sets much of the final taste.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, beer, lemon, clove, walnut, mushroom, sauce):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, beer, lemon, clove, walnut, mushroom, sauce. 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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