Rich Onion Sauce

“I never thought I’d be saying this, but it’s retardedly salty!” commented my volunteer taster and boyfriend.

This, coming from a guy who lives, breathes, heavily ingests and practically has salt blood sloshing through his veins, is rich indeed.

To be honest, the saltiness was my fault entirely, not Mrs Beeton’s.

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INGREDIENTS – 6 large onions, rather more than 1/2 pint of good gravy, 2 oz. of butter, salt and pepper to taste.

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As it’s just the two of us (excluding our three cats, who almost always seem to manage to get dinner table scraps off from my boyfriend), I usually reduce large-quantity recipes – in this case, by a third.

Good gravy, I thought.  Hmmm.  Well, I have to say that my homemade (vegetarian) gravy is normally pretty good.

But, knowing that my boyfriend is not overly fond of onions, I was determined to flavour the gravy in such a way as to make both the fried onions and the sauce itself mightily appealing.

Unfortunately, as it turns out, I put too much of a herb salt I’d just bought that day into the bowl.  Or, rather, over-estimated how much herb salt would be needed to match the usual saltiness of plain old sea salt.

We’d just had an argument about his attitude to trying new things, or, to be precise, anything new cooked by me.  So, in the spirit of conciliation, I asked for his opinion about the gravy before finalising the sauce.

The signs weren’t good when he raced to the sink and spat it out, before commenting on its saltiness.

After watering it down somewhat, I put everything back on the stove for one final flick of the wooden spoon before spooning the sauce onto our plates.

“It’s nice.  Better.  Oniony.”  stammered my boyfriend, sensing my eyes unblinkingly focused on his lips in a non-sexual manner.

The final result when making this sauce all depends, as I now know, on the quality of the gravy being used.  Mrs Beeton states a very small quantity of gravy should be added, but I very soon realised that this is not very realistic (the sauce soon turns to nothing but a pile of onion).  Let’s conservatively guestimate that I added approximately double the stated quantity, which still wasn’t enough but at least gave it the appearance of sauce.

It’s a nice sauce.  Just be careful with the gravy and you shouldn’t go too far wrong… unless you reach for the salt!

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Brown Onion Sauce (Recipe 485): http://www.mrsbeeton.com/10-chapter10.html#485

Scrumptious (If Slightly Sweet) Gravy

The other day, I made a small quantity of ‘Burnt Onion For Gravies’ (Day 93).

Although I had serious doubts about it at first (I mean, who eats burnt onion?), the end product is anything but burnt – or even resembling anything like onion.  Instead, it’s a brown sauce-type concoction with a sweet, vinegary scent and taste.  I keep it in the fridge, where it now resembles molasses in look and feel.

I decided to try it out tonight in my own homemade gravy, to see if it materially benefited the base flavour.

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Homemade gravy:  1 heaped teaspoon of flour, 1 pinch each of: curry powder, paprika and pepper, two good pinches of salt, several drops of soy sauce for colour, 1 1/2 cups of vegetable stock, a little vegetable stock powder

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To this I added 1/2 a tablespoon of burnt onion sauce (well, it’s more like a syrup, really).  Then, rather rashly, I added another 1/2 tablespoon and broke Gordon Ramsay’s cardinal rule:  “Taste it, you donkey!”

I served this with pork (for my boyfriend) and a vegetable schnitzel (for me).

“It’s good.  Um… it’s a bit sweet though,” he commented.  Which surprised me, given that his sweet-ometer is set to ‘off-the-scale’ most of the time.

It was totally my fault.  The gravy was actually quite tasty, but I overpowered it with too much burnt onion sauce.

The trick is to go easy with it – a teaspoon or so enhances the taste. whilst a tablespoon just makes it a little too sweet.

Bad hausfrau that I am.

Burnt Onion for Gravies… Yes, Really

I’m going to state right up front that I have no faith in the efficacy of this recipe.

Perhaps it’s because I’m in a grumpy-ish mood.  It’s Sunday.  It’s the weekend.  It’s my one day to relax (Saturdays are usually given over to the pursuit of household provisions and running errands, as everything is closed on Sundays in Germany).  Yet our cats seem to think that I am not only their personal slave – foolish human for thinking otherwise – but also their Sunday morning entertainment co-ordinator and the referee of their not-too-infrequent ‘playful’ squabbles. My boyfriend is snoring away in bed, snuggled warmly under the blankets and blissfully unaware of the feline-driven domestic chaos out here in the living room.

So, the foolish human decided to escape to the kitchen.  Usually this is no dampener to them – they simply slink  in and beg for food in as annoying a fashion as possible until I capitulate (2 of our 3 cats are my boyfriend’s, and they had him very well-trained before I came along.  The 3rd one eventually learned that this could be twisted to his advantage, too, and he now suddenly makes an appearance whenever the other cats head towards the kitchen).

However, I’ve found a recipe that’s highly unlikely to have them begging for anything.

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INGREDIENTS – 1/2 lb. of onions, 1/3 pint of water, 1/2 lb. of moist sugar, 1/3 pint of vinegar.

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The thing is, Isabella Beeton doesn’t exactly say what this burnt onion is for.  I’ve looked at the recipe with curiosity a few times, and as far as I can guess, it’s used to add colour and flavour, rather than being a sauce in its own right.  Somehow, I feel rather dubious about it.

Normally I use soy sauce to enhance the colour of my gravies, but, in the interests of experimentation and cat-riddance, I’m willing to try it out.  In advance of making it, though, I just can’t see how this would make a gravy taste even remotely appetising.  We’ll see.

An immediate problem rears its head – moist sugar.  It seems to be making an ever-frequent appearance in the recipes I’m trying.  I really need to find a modern equivalent (e.g. molasses) on my next foray into town.  In the meantime, I’ve decided to use raw sugar, as that’s all I have available until the shops re-open on Monday.  Anyway, undoubtedly not every Victorian housewife had moist sugar to hand, and had to find a suitable substitute from whatever they had to hand.

As anticipated, the cats pelted in all directions as soon as the onions began to boil (I wanted to run away too – boiled onion is not pleasant to the nose.  Even my boyfriend, inured to unpleasant scents (he doesn’t realise the kitty shitter needs cleaning until I start dashing past the utility room where the litter box is, pinching my nose and gagging), will probably wake up when the reek starts wafting into the bedroom.

“Holy smokes”, I thought, as the onion and sugar mix began to brown, “this is foul!”

The recipe’s instructions are not entirely clear, but I gathered that the onion liquid (what liquid, by that stage?) is supposed to be strained into the boiling vinegar.  Never one to err on the side of caution, I tipped everything in together and simmered it again for a few minutes, until thoroughly well incorporated.

And then came the moment of realisation.  “Hang on, isn’t this just brown sauce?” I wondered.  When I lived in Scotland, many years ago, the national sauce was – and probably still is – Brown Sauce (even in Scottish McDonald’s, you could get brown sauce alongside the tomato ketchup sachets).  It’s something of an acquired taste, but the vinegary-tang is quite enjoyable once you’re used to it.

I’m fairly sure that this ‘burnt onion’ liquid is, in fact, a predecessor of the modern Brown Sauce (correct me if I’m wrong).  In fact, as soon as I associated Mrs Beeton’s sauce with the Scottish sauce, suddenly it seemed a lot more attractive.

I’ll try this tonight in a gravy, and see whether or not it works as well as Brown Sauce does.

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Burnt Onion for Gravies (Recipe 1130): http://www.mrsbeeton.com/25-chapter25.html#1130

Sauce Robert

I made this for my boyfriend.

“Hey, there’s a sauce named after you in Household Management,” I exclaimed.

Mildly interested, he hovered over to take a look at the recipe.

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– 2 oz. of butter, 3 onions, 1 teaspoonful of flour, 4 tablespoonfuls of gravy, or stock No. 105, salt and pepper to taste, 1 teaspoonful of made mustard, 1 teaspoonful of vinegar, the juice of 1/2 lemon.

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It didn’t take too long to make, which was nice, as we had a friend coming round in 30 minutes to help finish off some left-over pork from a dinner party the night before.

I used some gravy left over from the dinner party, instead of the stock or Mrs Beeton gravy called for in the recipe.  I don’t think this would have been too different from her original gravy though, as far as the taste contribution to the sauce goes.

It didn’t look wildly exciting in the pan, but it sure tasted nice.  I asked the guys for their honest opinion as they tucked into the meat and sauce.

“Mmmm, tasty,” commented our friend.

“It’s OK,” added my boyfriend.

Unfortunately I didn’t get a snapshot of the final result on the plate.  However, I liked it a lot – the vinegar and lemon gave a pleasant, mild tangy taste to the onion gravy.  Not too tangy, but just enough to make it interesting.

Mmmm, tasty.

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Sauce Robert (Recipe 515): http://www.mrsbeeton.com/10-chapter10.html#515

Away with that box of gravy!

Forgive me, boxed gravy lovers, for what I am about to say.

Gravy doesn’t – or let me say shouldn’t – come in a box.

The argument for convenience is a very valid one.  Take a few spoonfuls of gravy granules, add some water, and hey presto! you have yourself some gravy.

But (there’s always a but)  the ingredients on the box are enough to put me off using any of them.   Why are E numbers often included?  And what exactly are the ingredients labelled as ”flavour” and ”colour”? If something cannot be openly named, then that’s enough to scare me off ever buying it.  And, I would argue, it’s dishonest – or, at the very least, supremely dodgy.

Besides, home-made gravy is such a cinch and costs next to nothing.  It’s much healthier by default, and you have precise control over what exactly goes into your food and how it’s flavoured.  What’s more, the base thickener can be used for an incredible variety of brown gravies or white sauces.  How wonderfully easy and convenient is that?

Isabella Beeton gives the following base thickener (roux) instructions:

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BROWN ROUX, a French Thickening for Gravies and Sauces.

6 oz. of butter, 9 oz. of flour.

Mode.—Melt the butter in a stewpan over a slow fire {stove}, and dredge in, very gradually, the flour; stir it till of a light-brown colour—to obtain this do it very slowly, otherwise the flour will burn and impart a bitter taste to the sauce it is mixed with. Pour it in a jar, and keep it for use: it will remain good some time.

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WHITE ROUX, for thickening White Sauces.

Allow the same proportions of butter and flour as in the preceding recipe, and proceed in the same manner as for brown roux, but do not keep it on the fire {stove} too long, and take care not to let it colour. This is used for thickening white sauce.

Sufficient,—A dessertspoonful will thicken a pint of gravy.

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To make a fresh and easy brown gravy, for each dessertspoonful of roux, slowly whisk in 1 3/4 cups of stock mixed with 1/2 teaspoon of soy sauce, 1/2 teaspoon of paprika, a couple of good pinches of curry powder, plus salt and pepper to taste.  A 1/2 tablespoon of red wine improves the flavour even more (optional).  Give it an occasional stir for 2-3 minutes until the gravy begins to thicken.  Serve.

The above brown gravy recipe is my own.  For a million variations of white and brown gravies, Household Management is a fabulous source (if you’ll forgive the pun):

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Brown Gravies (Recipes 433 – 444): http://www.mrsbeeton.com/10-chapter10.html#434

White Sauces (Recipes 367-8, 509, 517, 537-9) Same link