What's a meal without gravy?
Celebrating Southern Appalachian Food, carries the title “You’ve Got to Have Gravy.” Traditionally, that was the essence of the matter.
My Grandpa Joe, who was a mountain trencherman of the first magnitude, would have been completely mystified if Grandma Minnie had served up a meal of her invariably scrumptious vittles without a boat or bowl of gravy. He wouldn’t have dared say anything—criticism of any aspect of Grandma’s cooking was beyond the pale, and rightly so—but there would have been a raised eyebrow and a “What’s going on?” glance in my direction.
Similarly, if a breakfast in a logging camp came without sawmill gravy, the boss of the operation likely would have found himself facing a workers’ revolt. Logging was demanding, calorie-consuming work, and those who pursued it demanded food that stuck to a man’s ribs. Gravy fit squarely in the menus of that mindset.
Most of us no longer live a day-to-day existence where physical labor is a fact of life, but that doesn’t mean that to gustatory glories of gravy made right needs to vanish in the face of dictates from calorie-counting, cholesterol-crazy food freaks. I’ll accept an all-things-in-moderation approach, but by the same token, there’s a solid case to be made, as the title suggests, that a meal without gravy can be mighty poor pickins. If you agree with that mindset or maybe just relish the pleasures of a fine meal served with properly made gravy to anoint a fine piece of meat, give a biscuit a college education, or fill a crater scooped in a hefty serving of mashed potatoes with liquid lusciousness, here’s some time-tested offerings for gravy the mountain way.
Gravy remains a delightfully satisfying byproduct of any fried meat, and a cook’s ability to make it “just right” has long been considered a key measure of overall kitchen skills. To say that a cook makes “mighty fine gravy” is to tender a compliment of the highest order. Hopefully the recipes that follow will place you squarely in that rank.
Hamburger Gravy
For many Appalachian families a few generations back, they were more likely to enjoy the flavor of beef in gravy than any other way. A half pound or so of the least expensive ground beef available (i. e., with the highest fat content) could be stretched a long way when made into gravy and served atop biscuits or crumbled cornbread. You got the savory taste of meat without much expense and hamburger gravy
INGREDIENTS:
- Half pound of ground beef with 25-30 percent fat content
- ½ cup (or more) of all-purpose flour
- 1 cup of milk
- Salt and pepper to taste
PREPARATION:
Fry the burger then drain the grease and set the meat aside. Using the hot grease as your base, make a roux by gradually adding and browning flour. Then pour in milk a bit at a time, stirring constantly as the gravy thickens. When you approach the desired thickness for the gravy, sprinkle in salt and pepper along with adding the reserved burger. Heat everything, again using milk as a thinning agent as necessary. You can control the thickness of the gravy by how much flour and milk you use, and if the gravy is relatively thin a little burger goes a long way—and still keeps the taste of beef even though the mixture is mostly milk and flour.
What's a meal without gravy?
Cubed Steak and Gravy
INGREDIENTS:
- 1/4 to 1/3 pound of cubed steak per person
- Cooking oil or bacon grease
- Flour
- Milk
- Salt and black pepper
PREPARATION:
Thoroughly coat individual pieces of cubed steak with flour seasoned with salt and pepper. It isn’t a bad idea, especially if you want “cut with a fork” tender steak, to give it some extra pounding on a cutting board before flouring. Fry the pieces in a large sauce pan or skillet holding a bit more oil than you would normally use for frying meat. Remove the meat with tongs and place on a plate, covering with a “tent” of tinfoil for warmth. Be sure to leave any of the brown goodness that falls off during the frying process in the pan.
Once the meat is removed immediately add enough flour to the hot pan, stirring with a whisk as you do so, to make a roux. As an aside, don’t let the fancy, Frenchified word roux be “off putting,” to use mountain vernacular—it’s just a mixture of flour and grease that serves as a thickening agent in the gravy-making process. If you get a bit too much flour, and making a roux is pretty much a “judge by looks process,” add a bit more oil (or butter). Once the roux is the right consistency, with all the flour thoroughly blended in and nicely browned, add milk, whisking constantly as you do so. If the gravy in the making seems too thin add a bit more flour; if too thick, add more milk. You can also increase the amount of gravy this way, and in my view you never have too much. When it reaches a desirable consistency place in a gravy boat for serving or, alternatively, put the steak in a large container and pour the gravy over it for serving.
Giblet Gravy
While there’s probably nothing wrong with enjoying dressing or a slice of turkey in an unadorned state, they really cry out for a lavish ladle of giblet gravy spooned over them. I’ll leave the gravy making details to your individual tastes (a thin gravy made without milk or milk gravy are the two most common choices), but I do have a suggestion that will make it meatier and better. The next time you kill a wild turkey, save not only the giblets (heart, liver, and gizzard) but all of the dark meat (legs, thighs, wings, and medallions on the back). Place the dark meat in a large stock pot and keep it simmering for at least a couple of hours. The meat will never get really tender, but it will reach a point where you can remove it from the bones. Do so, and keep the stock as well. Chopped into small pieces and frozen with the giblets (add them in the final half hour of simmering), you have the makings of giblet gravy richly laced with nutritious bits of turkey. Combine it with some of the stock you saved and the juices from your baked domestic turkey, and you can produce an abundance of gravy and have the good feeling associated with fully utilizing your wild bird. Alternatively, you can buy extra domestic turkey or chicken organ meats, perhaps along with a package of chicken wings, and do the same thing. Of course the latter won’t require lengthy cooking.
Tomato Gravy
INGREDIENTS:
- 2 cups chopped tomatoes
- 2 tablespoons bacon drippings
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- Water
- Dash of sugar
- Salt and pepper to taste
PREPARATION:
Add flour to hot bacon drippings and cook for 2-3 minutes while stirring steadily. Season to taste with salt and pepper as the mixture cooks (you are in effect making a roux). Stir in tomatoes and add dash of sugar. Cover over low heat until mixture thickens. Depending on how juicy the tomatoes are, water may need to be added to thin the gravy to the desired consistency. This recipe is a favorite summer breakfast item in many parts of the Appalachians.
TIP: Canned tomatoes may also be used. A variation is to sauté diced onion in the bacon drippings before adding the tomatoes.
Gravy and Tomatoes
This is a great way to enjoy surplus ground beef or venison. Just brown whatever amount of meat you have, perhaps that left over from grilling burgers or making a meat loaf, and then add milk and flour, stirring steadily, to make a milk/meat gravy. If the meat is quite lean, as will certainly be the case with venison, you will need to add a bit of cooking oil or saved grease left over from frying streaked meat or bacon. Cook to desired thickness and pour over juicy slices of tomato. You can make an open face sandwich if you desire, but just the venison gravy and maters makes mighty fine fixins.
Chocolate Gravy
INGREDIENTS:
- 3 tablespoons flour
- 4 tablespoons sugar
- 2 cups water
- 3 tablespoons cocoa
PREPARATION:
Place flour in cast iron pan on medium heat; add sugar and cocoa and mix well. Gradually add water to mixture stirring constantly like you would for any other type of gravy. Serve over hot biscuits.
Sausage/Bacon/Fatback Gravy
After frying meat add flour to drippings and allow to cook for 2 to 3 minutes while stirring constantly. Salt, pepper and other seasoning can be added at this point. As you stir try to raise any little bits of meat that have cooked onto the pan. Doing so will ensure a very flavorful gravy. Slowing add milk to pan stirring constantly. About 1½ cups of milk are usually needed, but of course that needs to be adjusted to the amount of grease you have and how many folks are to be fed. Adjust the thickness as desired just before removing from the heat. Serve over warm biscuits, crumbled cornbread, slices of loaf bread, or even big slices of tomato.
Cornmeal Gravy
INGREDIENTS:
- About 3 or 4 tablespoons of bacon, fat-back, or hog jowl grease
- ½ cup of cornmeal
- Milk
- Salt and pepper to taste
PREPARATION:
Brown cornmeal in hot fat; add other ingredients and stir till thickened. You probably noticed this is not an exact recipe. I’ve found making gravy to be one of those things you have to do over and over till you figure out the method that works best for you. I add cornmeal or flour by the spoonful until I get enough in the pan to mostly soak up all the grease as it browns. Then I add milk to my thickness preference. I like my gravy thin so I use more milk than most folks. As gravy cooks you can add additional milk or water to thin it out if it gets too thick on you.
Red-Eye Gravy
INGREDIENTS:
- Country ham
- Coffee
PREPARATION:
This is about as easy as gravy making gets. Fry country ham in cast iron pan. Remove from pan once browned on both sides. Pour hot coffee into the hot drippings and stir while scraping the bottom of pan. Allow to simmer for a few minutes and it’s ready to eat. Pour over hot biscuits and enjoy!
Sawmill Gravy
True traditional sawmill gravy was heavy on cornmeal and light on flour. That was primarily because the latter was more expensive and less frequently ground in an era where most meal came from overshot mills turning grindstones or even tub mills. The gravy was often, though not always, made with sausage containing a lot of fat. You can get a modern version that still offers the crunch of cornmeal (keep in mind the old adage “white corn is for folks; yellow corn for critters”) combined with the smoothness of a flour base. Just mix a few tablespoons of unsifted cornmeal with your flour as part of the preparation process.