Gravy

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Gravy is a thickened sauce, usually made from a base of extracts that run from meat and/or vegetables during cooking. Recently, extracts have tended to be bought in the form of ready made cubes and powders. Gravy is most commonly served with a roast dinner, or Sunday roasts or with mashed or other popular types of potatoes.

Gravy

Gravy Granules

1 Contents
- 1.1 Types of gravy (Western)
2 Cuisines
3 Gravy in popular culture
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Contents

Thickened gravies are usually made starting with a roux (a mixture of fat and flour), corn starch, or arrowroot. The liquids from cooked meat, or the liquids from dissolved bouillon cubes (US)/stock cubes (UK) are added gradually to the mixture, while continually stirring to ensure that it mixes properly and the thickener doesn't clump. Sometimes, especially in more recent times, the animal fat in the roux may be omitted as part of the base due to its saturated fat content; it is generally replaced with corn flour alone (see Cowboy Roux), or is sometimes omitted entirely.

[edit] Types of gravy (Western)

Giblet gravy has the giblets of turkey or chicken added when it is to be served with those types of poultry.
White gravy may contain milk or cream but most often it is simply meat drippings to which white flour has been added. This may also be known as country gravy or sawmill gravy. Sometimes little bits of meat are mixed into the gravy. This is the gravy typically used in biscuits and gravy and chicken-fried steak.
Redeye gravy is a gravy made from the drippings of ham fried in a skillet/frying pan. The pan is deglazed with coffee or water. Coffee is the traditional method. A small amount of sugar is often added also. This gravy is a staple of Southern U.S. cuisine and is usually served over ham, grits or biscuits.
Tomato gravy is a gravy made from canned tomatoes, flour, and usually a small amount of fat. This is a Southern U.S. dish, usually served on meat, and not at all like Italian tomato sauces.
Vegetarian Gravy is gravy made suitable for vegetarians. One recipe uses vegetarian stock cubes with corn flour as a thickener (Cowboy Roux), which is whisked into boiling water. Sometimes vegetable juices are added, which may give the gravy a dark green color. There are also commercially produced gravy granules which are suitable for both vegetarians and vegans.

[edit] Cuisines

A popular American dish is mashed potatoes and gravy. Gravy is also commonly eaten with pork, chicken, lamb, turkey, beef, American style biscuits, Yorkshire pudding, and stuffing. One Southern American variation is chocolate gravy eaten with American biscuits. In Australia, Canada and the UK, chips/french fries and gravy is seen as a popular dish. It is also common with traditional "Sunday Roast". British gravy is renowned for its thickness. Gravy is an integral part of the Canadian dish poutine.

In many parts of Asia, particularly India, Malaysia and Singapore, the word "gravy" is used to refer to any thickened liquid part of a dish. For example, the liquid part of a thick curry may be referred to as gravy.

Most East Coast Italian Americans refer to tomato sauce as gravy. The term is typically applied to various Italian meat sauces.

[edit] Gravy in popular culture

In the sense of "absolutely fabulous, superb, excellent," see Raymond Carver's poem "Gravy" in the final section of A New Path to the Waterfall.
British rap artist MC Romeo released a single called "It's All Gravy" with Christina Milian in November 2002
Wavy Gravy is a peace activist and hippie clown associated with The Grateful Dead
Ten films appear on the Internet Movie Database with the word gravy in them. These are: Gravy (1916), Watery Gravy (1926), Pass the Gravy (1928), Brown Gravy (1929), Laughing Gravy (1931), The Gravy Train (1974), The Gravy Train (1990), The Gravy Train Goes East (1991), One Foot in the Gravy (2001), Groovy Gravy: Making the Scene in 'A Guy Thing' (2003)[1]
According to the UK football show Soccer AM "Northern boys love gravy" [2]
One of the Title characters of the cartoon show Ed, Edd n Eddy, Ed, has the catch phrase "Gravy!" which he spouts out even at the most innapropriate of times (which is very, very often on the show). This was parodied in one episode where Double-D mimiced Ed by saying 'Gravy' a lot and acting imbicilic. Ed replied, "Oh come on, Double-D, I don't say 'Gravy' all the time."
See also the idiom "gravy train", used to refer to any lucrative endeavour.
Grogan's House of Gravy, a skit in Blue Collar TV, in which Jeff Foxworthy operates a gravy resturant and throws gravy balls (water baloons filled with gravy) at the elderly