On Gravy

"Do you have a good recipe for gravy?"

You bet your sweet drippin's I do! Good gravy makes the meal worth eating. I've known a wife who saved her marriage by learning to make gravy (well, not really, but I think it's a delicious idea for a short story-- romance and gravy -- what could go wrong?).  Perhaps gravy is more of a Southern specialty, the best of comfort foods; I don't know anyone who ever heard of "Yankee gravy".   

A friend was praising the cuisine of France recently, saying how the sauces are so delicious and the hallmark of fine French cooking.  Is that right.  I looked up some French sauce recipes, and they sure did look like "gravy" to me; no Frenchie chef has the upper hand on any American cook!  But France does lay claim to the very word. "Grave, graue: seasoned broth or sauce, from Old French, late 14th century." How tragic to think that people before the mid-1300s never had gravy over their potatoes, or with their sausage and biscuits, or on their chicken-fried steak. 

Many blessings come to those who refuse to use a canned gravy or one from a packaged mix. May I never eat butter again if one of those blasphemous items is found in Granny's kitchen!

The actual recipe for gravy depends on what was cooked and how it was cooked. The general idea is to strain some of the fat from the cooked meat, add some thickener (usually flour or a flour and cornstarch slurry), and then a liquid. Generally, you use the same amount of fat and flour; if you strain off 1/2 c fat drippings, you'd want to use 1/2 c flour. From that point, you can use half milk/water, or combination of stock or broth for the liquid portion. How much liquid you use depends on how thick you want the gravy, how much protein content the flour has (if you use bread flour, you need more water), or maybe how far you have to stretch it (!).

Tasty gravy starts days or weeks before you make it. Good gravy starts with stock made from leftover bones. When you have chicken, for instance, save all the bones and then boil them up with a bit of apple cider vinegar. Strain that liquid and freeze it. (Technically, it is called "stock" if it comes from bones, and "broth" if it is from the meat.)

For beef stock, you can buy "dog bones" from a local butcher. If you can find knuckle bones with a bit of meat still on them, oh my what a find! These you would roast a bit first to brown the meat, then cover with water and a bit of vinegar and cook for at least a day, maybe two. (Note: Careful -- if you cook them too much you may bring out too much glutamic acid and if you are sensitive to MSG, it may cause a headache. I boiled some awesome meaty bones for about three days once and that stock, though the tastiest I ever made, gave me a headache.)

If you have access to fish bones or even fish heads, boil them up and save the stock. This is not one that I do, so you're on your own as far as flavor and what you'd put it on. But in the Nourishing Traditions cookbook, use of fish heads for stock is highly recommended.

You can also make vegetable stock. Right now I have some carrots that need to be used, so one day soon they are going into the crockpot with some celery and onion (with the skin on for extra Quercitin, a bioflavonoid) and garlic and make some stock for the freezer. (hmm. If veggies don't have bones, I guess it's veg "broth" not stock. But then veggies don't have meat, either. Oh the dilemmas of a grammar nut.)

For the fat -- if you did not have enough drippings, add some butter to it to make the amount you need. NEVER throw out chicken or duck fat, but save it for later if you don't use it all. It freezes well and may come in handy for other needs.

Gravy secrets: To make smooooth gravy, be sure the flour is well cooked (but not necessarily brown), then add the liquid all at once, and stir constantly with a whisk until it is thickened. Some old timers used to add an egg yolk for extra smoothness, but if you have a bit of LECITHIN (as for making the Liposomal Vitamin C) on hand, you can dissolve a teaspoon in a bit of warm water then stir that in. And if you do get some lumps, as will happen, a few seconds with the Bamix (the world's best stick blender) will save your reputation. 

A quick check shows only two books on this hallowed homemaking topic, one from "Uncle Jerry" and the other some sort of AI project.  I think the Gravy Muses are calling me.