Gravy

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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.

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1 Contents
- 1.1 Types of Gravy (Western)
2 Cuisines
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Contents

Thickened gravies are usually made starting with a roux (a mixture of fat and flour), corn starch, or arrowroot. The liquids from cooked meat, or the liquids from dissolved bouillon cubes (US)/stock cubes (UK) 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.

[edit] Types of Gravy (Western)

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. This is the gravy typically used in biscuits and gravy and chicken-fried steak.
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 suitable for vegetarians. One recipe uses vegetarian stock cubes with corn flour as a thickener (Cowboy Roux), which is whisked into boiling water. Sometimes vegetable juices are added, which may give the gravy a dark green colour.

[edit] Cuisines

A popular American dish is mashed potatoes and gravy. Gravy is also commonly eaten with pork,chicken, lamb, turkey, beef, American style biscuits, Yorkshire pudding, and stuffing. One Southern American variation is chocolate gravy eaten with American biscuits. In the UK and Canada, chips/french fries and gravy is seen as a popular 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 anglophones 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.