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'Gravy' is a type of sauce, usually made from the juices that naturally run from meat or vegetables during cooking. Ready made cubes and powders can also be used as a substitute for natural meat or vegetable extracts. Gravy is most commonly served with a roast dinner, Sunday roasts, rice^[1], or with mashed or other popular types of potato dishes.

Contents

Thickened gravy

Types of gravy

Cuisines

Gravy in popular culture

References

See also

External links

Thickened gravy

Thickened gravies are usually made starting with a roux made of wheat flour, cornstarch/cornflour, or arrowroot. The liquids from cooked meat, the liquids from dissolved bouillon cubes/stock cubes, or stock are added gradually to the mixture, while continually stirring to ensure that it mixes properly and the thickener doesn't clump. In some recipes the animal fat in the roux may be omitted as part of the base due to its saturated fat content. It may be replaced with cornstarch/cornflour alone (see 'cowboy roux') or is sometimes omitted entirely.

Types of gravy

★ 'God's gravy' is a term used for juices naturally emanating from meat joints during roasting served unadulterated as gravy.

★ 'Giblet gravy' has the giblets of turkey or chicken added when it is to be served with those types of poultry, or uses stock made from the giblets.

★ 'Onion gravy' is made from large quantities of slowly sweated, chopped onions mixed with stock and wine. Commonly served with sausages and mash, chops, or other grilled or fried meat cuts which by way of the cooking method would not produce their own gravy.

★ '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 'cream gravy,' '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/frying pan. 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.

★ '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 color. There are also commercially produced gravy granules which are suitable for both vegetarians and vegans.

★ 'Italian-American gravy' is commonly referred to as sauce or pasta sauce. In the Italian-American culture it is quite common to call sauce gravy (especially northeastern Italian-Americans).

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 Australia, Canada and the UK, chips and gravy is seen as a popular dish. It is also common with traditional "Sunday Roast". Gravy is an integral part of the Canadian dish poutine. A Southern U.S. dish that has gravy is chicken fried steak.
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.

Gravy in popular culture

★ In the sense of "absolutely fabulous, superb, excellent," see Raymond Carver's poem "Gravy" in the final section of A New Path to the Waterfall.

★ British rap artist MC Romeo released a single called "It's All Gravy" with Christina Milian in November 2002.

★ ''Lumpy Gravy'', the 1968 album by Frank Zappa.

★ Wavy Gravy is a peace activist and hippie clown associated with The Grateful Dead. Hugh Romney adopted this as his stage name in 1969.

★ 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).[1]

★ According to the United Kingdom football show Soccer AM "Northern boys love gravy." [2]

★ One of the Title characters of the cartoon show Ed, Edd n Eddy, Ed, has the catch phrase "Gravy!" which he spouts out even at the most inappropriate of times (which is very, very often on the show). This was parodied in one episode where Double-D mimicked Ed by saying 'Gravy' a lot and acting imbecilic. Ed replied, "Oh come on, Double-D, I don't say 'Gravy' all the time." There was also an episode of the show, 'All Eds are Off', where Ed must avoid gravy as long as the bet went. Ed wins when Eddy learns the vat Ed dove in wasn't gravy but butterscotch.

★ See also the idiom "gravy train", used to refer to any lucrative endeavor.

★ Grogan's House of Gravy, a skit in Blue Collar TV, in which Jeff Foxworthy operates a gravy restaurant and throws gravy balls (water balloons filled with gravy) at the elderly.

★ "Beer and Sex And Chips And Gravy", a song written by the Macc Lads.

★ More recently, in African-American neighborhoods, gravy is slang for an attractive female.

★ Also used as slang for extra benefits in the idiom "everything else is gravy."

★ On the HBO Television show The Sopranos, many family members refer to pasta sauce as gravy.

★ On the soundtrack to The Monkees movie ''Head'', there is a short track ''Gravy'' in which Davy Jones says "And, uh, I'd like a glass of cold gravy with a hair in it, please." [3]

★ In one episode of the webcomic Dinosaur Comics, T-Rex suggests people use other words instead of "bitches", one of which was the word gravy. Utahraptor says that using the word gravy just makes T-Rex sound like he is dumb and wants gravy, and T-Rex replies that he in fact does want gravy, however Utahraptor doesn't have any. [4]

★ In an episode of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, there are advertisements and training videos for a restaurant entitled "Gravy Robbers." The gimmick of the restaurant is that all of the juice in the meat has been sucked out, so that massive amounts of gravy is required. Also, specially trained "Gravy robbers" are positioned to steal gravy while customers dine.

★ In August 2007 Dominic Byrne, the newsreader from Radio 1's The Chris Moyles Show invented a new spicy variety of gravy containing pepper, apple and a chocolate powder. His 'Dom's Special Sauce' had the slogan 'Ahh... Baldo', a parody of the Bisto alternative.

References

1. http://www.realcajunrecipes.com/recipes/cajun/rice-gravy/119.rcr

See also

★ Cuisine of the Southern United States

External links

★ Gravy Recipes Over 100 popular gravy recipes at Allrecipes.com