Ray's Thought for the Day - Gravy
Potatoes are a delicious tuber produced by some of the Solanaceae. Druids are fond of potatoes and would prefer to have some at breakfast, dinner and supper. However, we are also fond of moderation, so every once in a while some potatoes get left over. Mashed potatoes are hardly ever left over in these parts, but once in a blue moon, a dab or two may survive our gustatory onslaught.
Druids are also fond of gravy. So in my capacity as chief cook at the CB, I did a little experiment with using left over mashed potatoes as a stand in for flour in the gravy. Here's how that worked.
Broil your favorite livestock parts in a big skillet. Be sure to salt the skillet first, so the livestock parts are less apt to stick. Plus, all that salt shall later come in for use in the gravy. If the livestock parts don't take up all the space in the big skillet and you like your gravy on the livestock parts anyway, you can leave the livestock parts in the big skillet while you fix the gravy. Otherwise, you may take the livestock parts out, once they are done to a turn, and fix the gravy separate.
Either way works fine, but let us assume that you want your gravy separate from the livestock parts. Here's what you do. Take the livestock parts out of the big skillet. Put them someplace warm so they won't get cold. Now you have a big skillet, already salted, with a variable amount of grease and other livestock juices there in the bottom of the big skillet. Decide how much of those interesting juices you need for your gravy. You may have more interesting juices than you actually want for the amount of gravy needed. **** (Potential Safety Topic - environmental hazards) - If you offload the grease into the sink once too often, you will be sorry. If you lose control of the big skillet while pouring it off into the sink, you will be sorry. If you burn yourself with the skillet or get the interesting contents of the skillet on yourself, you will be sorry.
So at this point you need to make a decision about how much grease and other livestock fluids you need for your gravy. Go ahead on and make that important decision. After you have made that important decision you are all set to make gravy.
What else needs to go into the big skillet. Easy that, a can of mushroom soup, a can of water, those left over mashed potatoes, some Worcestershire Sauce, (you may know this condiment as Woostersheer), and plenty of coarse black pepper. Mmmmmm, boy. The nice part is, the potatoes, unlike flour, don't want to ball up in the skillet. And if you have plenty of left over mashed potatoes you can make the gravy just as thick as your heart desires. Yepper. Mashed potato gravy is delicious.
Druids are also fond of gravy. So in my capacity as chief cook at the CB, I did a little experiment with using left over mashed potatoes as a stand in for flour in the gravy. Here's how that worked.
Broil your favorite livestock parts in a big skillet. Be sure to salt the skillet first, so the livestock parts are less apt to stick. Plus, all that salt shall later come in for use in the gravy. If the livestock parts don't take up all the space in the big skillet and you like your gravy on the livestock parts anyway, you can leave the livestock parts in the big skillet while you fix the gravy. Otherwise, you may take the livestock parts out, once they are done to a turn, and fix the gravy separate.
Either way works fine, but let us assume that you want your gravy separate from the livestock parts. Here's what you do. Take the livestock parts out of the big skillet. Put them someplace warm so they won't get cold. Now you have a big skillet, already salted, with a variable amount of grease and other livestock juices there in the bottom of the big skillet. Decide how much of those interesting juices you need for your gravy. You may have more interesting juices than you actually want for the amount of gravy needed. **** (Potential Safety Topic - environmental hazards) - If you offload the grease into the sink once too often, you will be sorry. If you lose control of the big skillet while pouring it off into the sink, you will be sorry. If you burn yourself with the skillet or get the interesting contents of the skillet on yourself, you will be sorry.
So at this point you need to make a decision about how much grease and other livestock fluids you need for your gravy. Go ahead on and make that important decision. After you have made that important decision you are all set to make gravy.
What else needs to go into the big skillet. Easy that, a can of mushroom soup, a can of water, those left over mashed potatoes, some Worcestershire Sauce, (you may know this condiment as Woostersheer), and plenty of coarse black pepper. Mmmmmm, boy. The nice part is, the potatoes, unlike flour, don't want to ball up in the skillet. And if you have plenty of left over mashed potatoes you can make the gravy just as thick as your heart desires. Yepper. Mashed potato gravy is delicious.
posted by ray pistrum at Monday, January 22, 2007
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