Pickled Onion Gravy
Fresh onions cooked down as usual, then a handful of chopped pickled onions and a splash of their vinegar stirred in at the end for a sharp finish.
- Contains meat
- pickled onion
- sharp
- pie and chips
- chip shop
- punchy
- Prep
- 10 min
- Cook
- 35 min
- Total
- 45 min
- Serves
- 4
- Difficulty
- Easy
This started as a chip shop idea and it turns out to be a very good one. The base is a normal onion gravy, and then chopped pickled onions go in near the end so they keep their crunch and their sourness. It is sharp, punchy and completely wrong for a formal Sunday lunch, which is exactly why it is so good with a pie, chips and mushy peas.
Ingredients
Makes about 500ml, enough for four plates
Scaled amounts are rounded to something you can actually measure. Season at the end and trust your mouth over the maths.
Kit
- Saucepan
- Whisk
- Chopping board
Method
Melt the butter and dripping in a saucepan over a medium low heat, add the fresh onions with a pinch of salt and cook for 25 minutes, stirring, until soft and browned. Because the pickled onions are going to bring so much sharpness, the base needs to be sweet, so take these ones properly dark.
Stir in the sugar and let it dissolve for a minute. This sounds odd in a gravy that is about to be soured, but it is what stops the finished thing tasting like vinegar and nothing else.
Add the flour and cook for 2 minutes, scraping the base as you stir.
Pour in the hot stock in two additions, whisking each until smooth, and simmer for 10 minutes until it thickens and coats a spoon.
Now add the pickled onion vinegar and stir. Taste it. Depending on the brand, two tablespoons might be plenty or you might want another. Malt pickling vinegar is much sharper than a wine vinegar so go carefully.
Stir in the quartered pickled onions and give them exactly 2 minutes in the hot gravy. Any longer and they go soft and lose the point of being there. Season with salt and a lot of black pepper and serve immediately.
Tips worth knowing
- Silverskin onions work too and are milder and smaller, so use about sixteen of them and chop them in half.
- Two minutes in the gravy is the limit for the pickled onions. They should still crunch faintly when you bite one.
- This gravy needs a strong beef stock behind it or the vinegar simply wins. A weak cube will not survive.
- It is very good poured over chips with grated cheese, which is not something you can say about most gravies.
Change it up
- Use pickled shallots and a teaspoon of their pickling spice for something a bit more grown up.
- Add a tablespoon of brown sauce along with the stock for a full chip shop flavour that suits a meat pie.
Keeping and reheating
Fridge for 4 days. The pickled onions soften as it sits, so if you know you are making it ahead, hold them back and stir them into the reheated gravy at the last minute. Freezing works but the onions lose all their crunch.
Questions people ask
Does pickled onion gravy taste too vinegary?
Not if the base is sweet enough. The fresh onions are cooked dark and a teaspoon of sugar goes in before the vinegar, which balances it. Add the pickling vinegar a tablespoon at a time and taste as you go, because brands vary enormously in strength.
What do you eat pickled onion gravy with?
Meat pies, chips, sausage and mash, and anything fried. The sharpness cuts through fat, which is why it works so well with chip shop food. It is not the gravy for a delicate roast chicken.
Can I use the vinegar from a jar of gherkins?
Yes, and it gives a slightly different, more herbal sharpness because of the dill and spices. Use the same quantity and taste as you go. Beetroot vinegar also works and turns the gravy a strange but attractive dark red.