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Brown Gravy

A savory gravy made from sautéed onion, carrot, turnip, herbs, butter, flour, water, vinegar, sugar, spices, and ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Brown Gravy

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Brown Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pan, fry the chopped onion, carrot, turnip, and herbs in butter until dark brown.

  2. Add flour and water, stirring until the mixture boils.

  3. Stir in parsley, vinegar, sugar, spice, and seasoning to taste.

  4. Simmer for about 1 hour, then strain and add ketchup.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Onion
Browns in the butter, adding deep color and savory sweetness to the gravy.
Butter
Carries the frying so the vegetables brown well and build flavor.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as it boils, giving the gravy body.
Carrot
Caramelizes as it fries, adding sweetness and depth to the base.
Turnip
Caramelizes as it fries, adding earthy sweetness to the base.

The step that matters

Frying the vegetables until dark brown. Browning the onion, carrot and turnip in butter develops deep Maillard and caramelized flavors that give the gravy its color and taste. Stopping early leaves the gravy pale and flat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, parsley, butter, flour, vinegar, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, parsley, butter, flour, vinegar, sugar. 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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