… And the Rest is Gravy

The title saying means that whatever you have left is extra richness. Not necessary but very nice to have. But what, exactly is gravy?

Gravy is a sauce made with the cooking juices of the meat it accompanies. Most are a velouté type, thickened with a roux and using stock or water. Béchamel (white sauce) uses milk instead of stock.

My first gravy memories are the ones my mother and grandmother made with great fried chicken gravy. They would pour off most off the fat from cooking the chicken, leaving the crispy bits in the pan. They then added flour and browned it. When it was the perfect shade of golden brown they would pour in cold water and stir like crazy. The result was heavenly – rich, golden brown, and full of chicken flavor with the extra texture of the crispy bits. Not lumps, crispy bits.

When it came to turkey gravy both of them forgot what they knew about gravy, forgot about cooking the roux, forgot everything. They would stew the giblets for a couple of hours, add a lump of butter-and-flour roux, and wind up with a kind of grayish, pasty mess. They would chop the giblets and add them back. The overcooked liver gave an interesting bitter edge to the substance. I took what they had taught me about fried-chicken gravy and what I had learned elsewhere and developed a really, really good turkey gravy. I use the same techniques for roast chicken gravy.

First, while the fowl cooks I make a cooked roux in a small skillet, cooking it until it’s that perfect golden color. I set it aside to cool. I remove the roast fowl from the pan and deglaze the pan with water, not neglecting the rack itself. That gives me an unbelievably rich stock for the base of the gravy. I pour it from the roasting pan into a saucepan – sometimes straining it if there are big pieces of skin stuck to the pan or rack -- and make sure it’s up to boiling, then add the cooled roux and stir. This allows the roux to melt into the stock gradually, and you don’t get lumps. I correct the seasonings, making sure to add lots of fresh-ground black pepper. The gravy is perfect on everything from the turkey to the sweet potatoes.

I once made a superlative gravy with the drippings from chicken cooked with barbecue sauce. That extra oomph with simply wondrous.

Southern cream gravy is a little different. It’s a béchamel, or white sauce, type made with milk. The really affluent will add actual cream.

Whether you use water, stock, or milk the proportions are the same: 1 tablespoon of flour, 1 tablespoon of butter or meat fat, and one cup of liquid.

Unlike gravy from roast meat, red-eye gravy is a different sauce. It’s made by using coffee to deglaze the pan you fried ham in, and left unthickened. It’s the only thing that renders that old southern standby “grits” edible. Butter doesn’t do it, milk and sugar don’t help. Only red-eye gravy can add enough flavor to make grits enjoyable.

I don’t confine my enjoyment to fried or roast fowl. I love French fries with gravy. I love country-fried steak: coat cubed steak with salted and peppered flour, fry it until golden brown, remove from pan, fry a mess of onions in the fat, add flour and brown it, then add water to make a thin gravy. Put the steak back into the gravy and simmer for an hour to get it properly tender. Serve with rice or boiled potatoes to soak up the gravy.

As much as I love gravy, I do reserve it for special meals. I don’t eat gravy every day. If I did, it wouldn’t be nearly as special as it is now, when the taste of fried-chicken gravy reminds me of summer Sunday afternoons with my mother and grandmother, the steam of the kitchen adding more heat to the day and giving real meaning to the word “summer.”

(c) 2008 Katherine DeWitt