How do my fellow friends on these boards make their gravy? Iam looking for new recipes. Please help......

ds

Heh, come over here, kid, learn something. You never know, you might have to cook for twenty guys someday. You see, you start out with a little bit of oil. Then you fry some garlic. Then you throw in some tomatoes, tomato paste, you fry it; ya make sure it doesn't stick. You get it to a boil; you shove in all your sausage and your meatballs; heh?... And a little bit o' wine. An' a little bit o' sugar, and that's my trick.

Crush up peeled tomatoes and fry them in olive oil with onions and tomato paste (sometimes I leave out the paste). I don't use salt, but alot of pepper, garlic powder (crushed garlic if I have it), and Basil. Sometimes I'll add a piece of pork. Pretty simple.

Go to the supermarket. Go to the sauce aisle. Buy a jar and take it home. Open it and pour it into a saucepan. Heat it up on the stove. That's my secret.

Smitty, I never use paste.

I use canned Tuttorusso tomatoes with basil.

Slice up some garlic, very thin and chop up some onions, very fine.
( amount of garlic and onions used depends on both your taste and the number of cans you will be using for your gravy).

Heat up the pot (on a low flame) that you are going to use. Once the pot is heated then coat the bottom of the pot with pure extra virgin olive oil keeping the flame on low. When you begin to see the ripples in the olive oil, drop in your chopped up onions and then your sliced garlic, stirring and keeping careful watch making sure that the garlic does not burn.

Once onions and garlic begin to tan, pour in the tomatoe sauce. Stir. Then add in some parsley, some basil, salt, pepper, some oreganeo, and grated cheese. With your cooking spoon you want to stir (almost in a whipping motion) all the ingredients that you just added INTO the sauce, stirring from the middle of the pot out to the ends and then slowly back into the middle. Then drop in a little bit of sugar (not too much) and stir once again. Keep flame on low. Do not leave pot totally uncovered but do not cover completely. Try placing the cover in a position where at least a 1/4 of the pot is left uncovered.

Once your gravy begins to heat up taste and add of more the ingredients that you think are lacking if needed.

If you've browned your meatballs and sausage, add them to the pot.

Cool. It sounds great! I will have to try it soon. Thanks Don Cardi!

ds

Two things are important. As DC said, be careful not to burn the onion and garlic. The onions will carmelize and the garlic will become bitter. NOT good. Also, put your canned tomatoes through some kind of strainer to get the seeds out. Seeds will make your sauce bitter.

Most people simply add browned meatballs and sausage. However, the meat you add can make a difference in the taste of the gravy. If you like your sauce spicy, use hot sausage. If you like it sweet, add a browned chicken leg or a piece of pork (perhaps a country style rib) to your gravy. If you like it thick, cook it with the cover mostly off. If you like it thin, cover it.

I never add my sugar until the end. Depending on how you cooked it, you may not need it, so I always wait.

I am probably the only person in the universe who calls this "sauce". To me gravy is what you put on your potatoes.

That's BROWN gravy! And I love that, too. Give me a rare roast beef and brown gravy and some egg noodles or mashed potatoes, and some nice spinach or fresh broccoli. OMG!! I could eat and eat and eat. (can you tell I'm on a diet?)

Ewwwwwwwww!!!

No you're not Beth. When I opened this thread, I thought, "Good, since I suck at making gravy, now maybe I'll get some great tips on how to make good gravy (the kind you put on potatos)." At first I thought maybe it's an East Coast thing, but I'm thinking it's more a NY thing. I just can't see pouring a chicken/beef gravy over my pasta. Sauce is what goes on pasta.


TIS

TIS, to us, Sundays was always macaroni and gravy. And we differentiated by calling the other stuff brown gravy. It just might be a NY thing.

And if you need help with brown gravy, let me know. My mother taught me the right way to do it, and I've made it without fail for years.

How is she with turkey gravy? I always want to try to make homemade gravy for Thanksgiving. I fail miserably.

All brown gravy is made the same way, Beth. My mother's secret is that she doesn't use flour. Flour lumps very easily. She uses cornstarch instead. The other important thing is to never add the cornstarch when the drippings are too hot. That also avoids lumps.

I usually drain all my drippings into a pot. I also add a cup of bullion because we like lots of gravy (on Thanksgiving, I actually simmer the turkey neck with some celery and onions, drain and add that to the pot so that we have a TON of gravy). I also add some salt, pepper and a little onion powder.

In a separate cup, I mix a few tablespoons of cornstarch and water, just enough until it's smooth. Then I add that mixture slowly to the drippings, stirring constantly. After it's all mixed in, THEN I turn on the flame. I stir until it boils and thickens. Remove the pot from the flame and check to see if it's thickened to your liking. If not, mix a bit more cornstarch and water and add it as you did before. Because it's hotter than it was previously, you will have to stir quite briskly to make sure it doesn't lump. Again, do not put the gravy back on the flame until you have completely mixed in the cornstarch. Bring it to a boil again and make sure it's thick enough.

I always add a little bit of Gravy Master at the end as well.

If you were making turkey gravy, which is a larger pot, you'll have to mix more than a few tablespoons of cornstarch, but it's really trial and error. I don't have a recipe.

Do you use cold or warm water with the cornstarch?

I guess room temperature, Mig.

NO! IT MUST BE COLD! I was a cook in the navy and I have the secret to the no miss corn starch thickening trick...trust me - this works the best! Thickening any kind of sauce or gravy is a tricky thing and you can screw it up bad if not careful. Take a small bowl and add 4 Tablespoons of cold water. Take 4 Tablespoons of cornstarch and add to the cold water and mix quickly with a fork. When the mixture is blended add to your sauce you wish to thicken. Mix in with the gravy/sauce briskly and wait to see if it needs another "dose" of corn starch. The secret is equal amounts of cold water to equal amounts of cornstarch mixed thoroughly. If it needs to be thickened more, repeat the process I detailed earlier. A sauce or gravy is thick enough when you dip a spoon into mixture and it stays medium coated after you lift it out.

Thanks, Mark. I never knew that. I just turn on the faucet. And make sure not to add the cornstarch mixture when the drippings are hot, or it will lump immediately.

Anytime!

Ya learn something new everyday. What ships were you on? Thanks for the recipe.

Mig, I spent 3.5 years on the USS Orion AS-18 homeport of La Maddalena, Sardinia. Beautiful place - especially in the summer. Has the Colonel ever heard of the place? Maybe I served with Col. and I don't even know it?..

Mark, The Col. was never on the USS Orion. He was on the:
USS Canopus AS-34
USS Frank Cable As-40
USS Halyburton FFG-40
USS Vella Gulf CG-72
Plus shore facilities as well.

The Frank Cable was exactly like the ship I was on...a sub tender. Good duty...almost like shore duty.

From where I come from it's called Gravy when you put Meatballs, Sausage, Bracciole, and/or any other kinds of solid meats in it. Hence "Meats in the GRAVY. I've never heard it called meats in the sauce.

We call it sauce when it's a Marinara Sauce, a Bolognese Sauce ( chopped meat based ), Alfredo Sauce, Vodka Sauce, etc.

But when you have 'solid' meats like the ones I mentioned above, it becomes Meats in the Gravy.

TIS, you're an Italian, what did your family call it when they added and cooked meatballs and sausages in it?

DC,

In my family, the red sauce was always called "sugu" (sp). Don't know if it's slang or just perhaps Sicilian, or from a certain part of Silicy, but with or without meat it was sugu. This was passed on of course by both my grandparents who were from Sicily, so I have every reason to believe it was carried on from them but how it originated I don't know.

Now that I think about it, I did have an older cousin here in CA who I visited a few time and I believe she referred to the red sauce as gravy too. She was from my mom's side of the family so I don't know how/why the differences. Interesting though.




TIS

I never heard it called anything but sauce until I heard Paulie call it gravy on the Sopranos. Gravy was always white or brown and never on spaghetti or such.

I remember in "A Bronx Tale", C asked that black girl if she could cook "macaroni and gravy". Then in The Sopranos, I saw Paulie call it gravy and Uncle Junior called it red gravy in a scene with Tony... I thought "gravy" was strictly an east coast thing. We call it both sauce and gravy in Chicago...mostly gravy.

Gravy is what I put on biscuits. Sauce is what I put on spaghetti.

That cousin in CA I mentioned.....she was originally from Chicago. Most here eeem to be from the NY/NJ area that say "gravy" though. Maybe it is a geographical thing after all.


TIS

Great flick.