Posted on November 21, 2011
This is a reprieve of a blog I posted last year at www.blameitonthemuse.com. I’m bringing it back by popular demand. It being good gravy season.
When it comes to Thanksgiving, I am thankful for gravy – and the generations of women who handed down the art of gravy making so that I could share it with you.
photo by Didricks (flickr)
I learned how to make gravy from my mother’s two older sisters: Aunt Doss and Aunt Annie. Mom, who came from the same gene pool, could not make decent gravy to save her soul, but, ironically, Mom is the one who taught Aunt Doss and Aunt Annie how to make gravy. She accomplished this feat even though she had never made gravy in her life.
How, you ask?
Picture a small farmhouse in rural South Carolina around 1929. My grandmother had just passed away and Aunt Annie had returned from Winthrop College and Aunt Doss from the big city to help keep their father’s home and to look after their little sister (Mom) who was just barely 12 at the time. Mom was sick with the mumps. Bedridden.
Aunts Annie and Doss were making dinner and decided that the chicken needed gravy, but neither one of them had a clue. So, Doss and Annie asked Mom if she had any ideas, and Mom was just chock full of ideas, gleaned from years of watching her mother make gravy. Mom had never ever made gravy, either.
So, as the story goes, Mom hollered the precise step-by-step instructions for gravy making from her sick bed. Her sisters followed the instructions and, voila, gravy was made to everyone’s satisfaction. (Along with a family story that has been told, now for eighty-one years, and which will continue being told for a while, yet.)
Flash forward several decades to a kitchen in New York. (Annie and Mom both moved to New York in the 1930s). Aunt Annie always came for Thanksgiving dinner, and Mom always ceded the kitchen to her so that the good gravy could be made since Mom really had no gift for gravy making, except her ability to teach. By the 1960s, I was required to watch and learn the entire process. This was, Annie said, because a person could learn a lot by watching. She would then proceed to tell the story of how Mom learned to make gravy by watching her mother.
So I watched and learned.
And now I make the gravy every Thanksgiving, and pass along the story of Mom hollering the instructions down the hall from her sickbed to my own kids. Last year, on Thanksgiving Day, my daughter called me from Chicago. She made me dictate the step-by-step instructions for gravy making over the phone. I guess that’s the modern-day equivalent of hollering down the hall. But, I can feel good about the fact that another generation has learned the art of gravy making.
I loved Mom and Aunt Doss and Aunt Annie with all my heart. Those three ladies are never far from my mind even though they have all been gone for many years, now. The gravy lives on and I am ever thankful for that.
So, here are the step-by-step instructions for making gravy that Mom hollered to her sisters so many years ago:
Step 1: Take the giblets and neck from the bird and put them in a saucepan and cover them with water. Put them on a low simmer. The stock you make will become the body of the gravy, so if you have a big crowd, be sure to make a lot of stock. You can put onions or carrots or other flavorings in the pot if you like. Cover the saucepan and simmer all day — for as long as you cook the turkey.
Step 2: When the bird is about ready to come out of the oven, strain the stock though a strainer and remove the neck and giblets. If you like giblets in your gravy, dice up the liver and heart and return them to the stock, otherwise, discard everything and pour the stock in a liquid measuring cup so you know how many cups of stock you’ve got.
Step 3: When the bird comes out of the oven, remove it to a cutting board and let it stand before carving. For each cup of stock you’ll need two tablespoons of the turkey drippings from the bottom of the pan. Make sure they are heavy on the grease. The grease is what keeps the gravy from getting lumpy. (It’s also why cardiologists have put gravy on that list of foods that you are better off not eating — but what do cardiologist know.)
Step 4: Put the grease in a large frying pan (cast iron is best) and turn up the heat to high. For each tablespoon of grease put in two tablespoons of flour. No sifting required.
Step 5: This is the most important step. You must cook the roux created by the grease and flour, stirring constantly, until it is very brown, almost burned. It will undoubtedly stick to the bottom of the pan, but have no fear. The trick to making gravy is to be utterly fearless when it comes to browning the roux. If you chicken out, your gravy will not be brown. This is the place where my mother always failed in her gravy making. Mom’s gravy was never brown. She would cheat and put soy sauce in it. Annie, on the other hand, would cook that roux until it looked almost burned and come up with amazing gravy every time.
Step 6: When the roux is dark brown, pour the stock into the frying pan. You should have a very long spoon when you do this, and stand back, because the stock hitting the hot skillet will make a big whoosh of steam.
Step 7: Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the gravy is thick — about 10 minutes or so.
