Savoury Brown Sauce

Hi, this recipe is from 'Vegetarian Kitchen' by Sarah Brown, the book contains an assortment of fantastic veggie recipes that are easy and fun to make as well. For the sauce, I was expecting it to be like an HP brown sauce, whereas it actually turned out to be more of a gravy/soup sort of thing. I would suggest using it in a casserole or sheperd's pie as a gravy or as a base for a thick soup. I hope this helps and please let me know if you have any other suggestions for uses of it as I would be very interested. Enjoy!!

Dietary Info:

-Contains Gluten {Use a G-F flour instead}

-Suitable for Vegetarians

-May contain Dairy {This will depend on if you use butter or oil}

-No Nuts

-May be suitable for Vegans {Depends on if you use oil or margarine/butter to fry the onion}

 Makes: 3/4pint or 400ml of sauce

Ingredients:

-1+1/2oz (40g) butter or 1+1/2tbsp oil {any oil will work fine; olive, extra virgin olive oil, rapeseed, sunflower etc}

-1 medium onion, peeled and finely chopped

-a pinch of salt

-1/2tsp celery salt or 2 sticks of celery, finely chopped {I used fresh celery}

-1oz/25g wholewheat flour

-1/2tsp mustard powder

-1 pint (570ml) vegetable or bean stock {I used vegetable}

-1tsp dried thyme or 2tsp fresh thyme, chopped

-1 bay leaf {We didn't have any of these in so I skipped this ingredient}

-1tsp yeast extract or 1tsp miso {I used 1tsp of yeast extract, which is marmite}

-1tsp soy sauce {I used dark soy sauce}

-salt & pepper

Method: 

1: Melt the butter over a gentle heat, {Or heat the oil in a saucepan} then fry the onion for 5-7mins, sprinkling over a little salt so that the juices in the onion are brought out. 

2:Then, add the celery seed. {or fresh celery}

3:Sprinkle over the flour and mustard powder and allow this roux to cook for 3-5mins so that it turns a golden brown colour. {Make sure you stir this as soon as you add the flour as it gets quite sticky and dry quite fast}

4:Then, add the stock gradually, stirring constantly, and bring to the boil adding the thyme, bay leaf and flavourings. Let the sauce cook on a gentle heat for 5-7mins, then correct the seasonings and continue cooking for a further 10mins in a partially covered pan so that the sauce reduces. {I ended up cooking for an addition 5-10mins as mine was still a bit runnier than I wanted, I also pureed mine at the end so as to have a smoother sauce}