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Sauce

Brown Sauce for Ragout, Game, Poultry, Fish, &C.

A brown sauce made with ham or bacon, onion, beef, water, bread, herbs, spices, and thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Winter savory and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 287 recipes mention both. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Brown Sauce for Ragout, Game, Poultry, Fish, &C.

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the base

  1. Heat the ham or bacon (or butter) with the onion in a thick, well-tinned stew pan.

  2. Add the gravy beef.

  3. Score the beef to increase surface area for extraction.

  4. Cover the pan.

  5. Set the pan on a slow fire until the meat begins to brown. Turn the meat occasionally.

Simmer the stock

  1. Pour in the boiling water and catch any scum that rises.

  2. Add the toasted bread, herbs, lemon peel, allspice, and black pepper.

  3. Cover the pan.

  4. Let it simmer gently for about two hours.

  5. Strain the sauce through a sieve into a basin.

Thicken and finish

  1. Melt the butter in a clean stew pan.

  2. Gradually add flour while stirring to thicken.

  3. Pour in a little of the strained gravy and mix well.

  4. Add the rest of the gravy gradually.

  5. Simmer gently for 15-20 minutes, skimming off any fat that rises.

  6. When thickened to the consistency of cream, strain through a fine 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Winter savory + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together287 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Winter savory + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together616 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Lemon + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Gravy beef
Provides the meat flavour and body that the sauce is built on.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth as it softens and browns with the meat.
Flour
Thickens the strained gravy into a smooth, cream-like sauce.
Butter
Carries the flour for thickening and adds richness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum and fat. Scum that rises when the boiling water goes in and fat on the simmering sauce can cloud the flavour and texture. Removing them keeps the sauce clear and clean-tasting.

“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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