Last weekend I watched the Irish movie Intermission (2003), and “brown sauce” is featured prominently. I’ve never heard of brown sauce, but by the time I got to my computer after watching the move I’d forgotten to ask about it. Then, yesterday I came across a reference to it on a BBC message board.
What is brown sauce? Is it anything like American steak sauce?
Hmmm, in classic cooking, “brown sauce” is kind of a dark demi-glacé, or brown-butter roux. It’s something you cook; not something you buy in a bottle.
The brown sauce that Brittish people refer to is usually a sauce similar to ketchup but using apple and tamarind instead of tomato. Vinegar Sugar Apple Pulp Tamarind Juice and maybe some dried grape or plum, and spices would be a typical ingredient list. The most famous make of which is Houses of Parleament Sauce or HP Sauce as linked to earlier.
It is unrelated to the French cuisine brown sauce that is a darkened roux mentioned by missbunny which in English cookery would be wrongly considered beef gravey.
Had some in some sort of pub in Dublin several years ago.
The little basket of condiments dropped off with the french fries had packets of “Brown Sauce” - possibly Heinz brand. It was blander than I thought it would be, and possibly not meant for putting on fries, which is what we did with it.
I might have liked it better if I’d been putting it on the right food.
So seriously - how embarrassed should we be that we were putting Brown Sauce on fries? Do you think anyone was snickering at us behind our backs?
Our local Chinese restaurant serves something they call “brown sauce,” too (in the food, not alongside it), but I have a feeling that’s not the same type of thing that you’re all describing…
Not at all, the classic thing to have on your chips in Scotland (depending on region) is “salt ‘n’ sauce”. The sauce in question being classic brown sauce watered down with vinegar.