Gravy
Gravy is a thickened
sauce, usually made from a base of extracts that run from
meat and/or vegetables during
cooking. Recently, extracts have tended to be bought in the form of ready made cubes and powders. Gravy is most commonly served with a
Roast dinner, or
Sunday roasts or with
mashed or other popular types of potatoes.
Thickened gravies are usually made starting with a
roux (a mixture of
animal fat and
flour,
corn starch, or
arrowroot). The liquids from cooked meat, or the liquids from dissolved
bouillon cubes (US)/
Stock Cubes (UK)/
Gravy powders are added gradually to the mixture, while continually stirring, to ensure that it mixes properly and the thickener doesn't clump. Sometimes, especially in more recent times, the animal fat in the roux may be omitted as part of the base due to its
saturated fat content, it is generally replaced with
Corn flour alone (see
Cowboy Roux), or is sometimes omitted entirely.
Types
*
Giblet gravy has the
giblets of turkey or chicken added when it is to be served with those types of poultry.
*
White gravy may contain
milk or
cream but most often it is simply meat drippings to which white flour has been added. This may also be known as
country gravy or
sawmill gravy. Sometimes little bits of meat are mixed into the gravy.
*
Redeye gravy is a gravy made from the drippings of ham fried in a skillet. The pan is deglazed with coffee or water. Coffee is the traditional method. A small amount of sugar is often added also. This gravy is a staple of Southern U.S. cuisine and is usually served over ham,
grits or
biscuits.
*
Tomato gravy is a gravy made from canned tomatoes, flour, and usually a small amount of fat. This is a Southern U.S. dish, usually served on meat, and not at all like Italian tomato sauces.
*
Vegetarian Gravy is gravy made using Stock cubes that are vegetarian, requiring Corn flour as the base for thickening (
Cowboy Roux), and boiling water as the mixing agent. Sometimes juices from the vegetables are added, this may make the gravy a dark green colour.
A popular
American dish is mashed
potatoes and gravy. Gravy is also commonly eaten with meat,
American style biscuits,
Yorkshire pudding, and
stuffing. One Southern American variation is chocolate gravy eaten with American biscuits. In the
UK,
chips and gravy is seen as a popular northern dish. It is also common with traditional "
Sunday Roast". British gravy is renowned for its thickness. Gravy is an integral part of the
Canadian dish
Poutine.
Italian-Americans of southern Italian extraction often refer to thick tomato sauce served over pasta as gravy. This is a result of multiple types of meat including meatballs, sweet or hot Italian Sausage and
Bresaola being cooked for many hours in the mixture along with the tomatoes, herbs, spices, olive oil and red wine. To those who use this expression, the mixing of the juices during the slow cooking process is what turns a straight tomato based Marinara Sauce into a "gravy" with an unmistakable meat flavor. It is also likely that the
Italian word
salsa (which includes a variety of things we call sauces, including marinara) actually more literally translates as gravy.
In many parts of Asia, particularly India, Malaysia and Singapore, the word "gravy" is used to refer to any thickened liquid part of a dish. For example, the liquid part of a thick curry may be referred to as gravy.
* The term gravy is used in modern slang to mean "Awesome; cool; the shiznit; phat; absolutely fabulous; kinky; nasty (in a good way); superb; excellent"[
1]This probably originated from Afro-Americans.
* Baby gravy is a slang term for
semen[
2]
* British rap artist
Romeo Dunn released a single called "It's All Gravy" with
Christina Milian in November 2002
*
Wavy Gravy is a peace activist and
hippie clown* Ten films appear on the
Internet Movie Database with the word gravy in them. These are: Gravy (1916), Watery Gravy (1926), Pass the Gravy (1928), Brown Gravy (1929), Laughing Gravy (1931), The Gravy Train (1974), The Gravy Train (1990), The Gravy Train Goes East (1991), One Foot in the Gravy (2001), Groovy Gravy: Making the Scene in 'A Guy Thing' (2003)[
3]
*
Cuisine of the Southern United States*
Gravy Recipes Over 100 popular gravy recipes at Allrecipes.com
