A bunch of us were crammed into a little car in Indianapolis. I had spent the previous eight hours prostrate on a living room couch having pillows, magazines, and CD cases thrown at me from all directions. Yes, I snore. Deal with it.

The PREVIOUS eight hours I had spent in a giant green sarcophagus made of chicken wire, foam padding, duct tape, and toxic paint. I was high on fumes and the chicken wire had extracted two pints of blood from my lower leg. And the drinking didn't help.

Not that I am EVER a bright ray of morning sunshine, but I really wasn't in command of my faculties. I should have just said no.

But someone not named Jeff asked our hostess what was for breakfast, and she had said something about sausage biscuits and gravy. I assumed, correctly, that messers Evans and Pillsbury would take care of the first two parts of the equation, but even in my quasi-comotose state I didn't think I could stomach something out of a little packet.

So before I could even press the matter, the hostess kind of gave me this look, the exact same look I gave my mom the night before my science project was due and I hadn't started.

I don't think of moments like this as a time to be a hero. Unfortunately, I regard them as time to avoid screwing things up. See, I don't cook well under pressure. And I REALLY don't do gravy well. I get impatient, start panicking and adding extra liquid and then extra flour, and wind up with basically paper mache material with a little bit of grease thrown in for good measure.

I should have just said no.

But then our hostess lay this trip on me... "I thought, you, being, like the cook and all, could do the gravy."

So now it was about ego. Yeah, I'll make some gravy. Way to push my buttons.

This is one of those things that everyone should know how to do: a basic bechamel gravy. Any number of soups, sauces, souffles, cheese dishes depend on this basic combination of flour, fat, and milk. The technique is simple, but to paraphrase Walter Sobcheck, it is not Nam, it is gravy, and there are rules.

Sausage Gravy

1 tube thingie of sausage.
3 T Flour
3 T Butter
3 C Milk.
2 t of whatever dried spices are handy, pepper, Mrs Dash, whatever.
(Note: dash of fresh nutmeg is traditional and really nice)

Place a skillet over medium-low heat. Cook the sausage in small batches until just browned and set aside. There may or may not be fat left in the pan. But what is there, gently pour it out into a very small vessel in order to measure it. This is where many people go wrong - they overestimate or underestimate the pan-fat and ruin the porportions.

Add up to a T of the sausage grease if you wish, otherwise, just add the 3T of butter, for a total of three tablespoons of liquidous fat.

When the butter is completely melted, slowly sprinkle in the flour. It should form a very loose paste. Continue stirring for another moment or so, sniffing periodically until the mixture smells "nutty." The flour should have completely dissapeared from the bottom of the pan and there should be no lumps. Keep stirring with a spatula, making sure that any wonderful little bits from the bottom of the pan are stirred into the gravy.

Turn the heat up to medium high.

Start adding the milk, a tablespoon or so at a time at first. Stir vigourously. Here, by the way, is another spot where people can botch gravy. If you add too much cold milk too quickly, the mixture will cool down too much and just clump up. Lumps can be stirred out, but only if the roux is relatively warm. So go slowly. A drop or two at a time, stirring each time until it's dissolved into the roux. Keep adding the mixture until it's all in, and there are no lumps.

Now, continue stirring constantly because this will all happen really fast. The starch will thicken at a very specific temperature, which is just under a boil. The gravy will seem very loose, like it will never thicken, but if you've come this far, you are okay. Just be patient.

Once it thickens and starts to bubble, give it a stir, and turn the heat down slightly, continue stirring. The key is to lower the heat slowly while continuing to cook and stir. This will let any remaining ceral taste from the flour cook out completely.

You can add whatever spices you like at this point.

Note, again, that sauces like this thicken as they cool. What looks a bit loose in the pan will be much more velvety in a mintute or so once it's on a plate.

Okay, give it a taste. It will be VERY bland, and that's okay. It should taste like "milk sauce." Most of the flavor here comes either from the spices or the gravy. What you should NOT taste is granularity.

If you like the sauce, stir in the sausage bits, and serve over biscuits or toast.

Serves four to six.

Devour, play video games all day with your friends, then take the bus back to Cincinnati.

Posted by Jeff at 2:24AM AM:: Permalink :: (Comments Closed)

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