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Rules for Making Gravy

A simple gravy made from roast drippings, water, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Rules for Making Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Keep the roast warm on a hot dish.

  2. Pour the drippings into a small bowl, leaving behind the brown particles.

  3. Add 1 cup of boiling water and ¼ teaspoon of salt to the drippings.

Make and serve the gravy

  1. Heat over the fire, stirring with a spoon until it boils, crushing the brown scraps.

  2. Strain the gravy around the joint or serve in a sauceboat.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Drippings from roast
Provides concentrated meat flavor and browned bits that colour and season the gravy.
Boiling water
Dissolves the drippings and thins them into a pourable gravy.

The step that matters

Heating until it boils while crushing the brown scraps. The browned particles hold much of the roast's flavour and colour. Stirring them into the hot liquid releases these compounds into the gravy, so scraping them up thoroughly gives a richer result.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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