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Gravy, Brown, Cheap and Good
Toast a slice of bread on both sides until hard and darkly browned, but not burnt. Cut two large onions into thin slices, fry them in a little dripping or butter till brightly browned, and pour over them a quart of boiling water or stock. Put in the toast, and any trimmings of meat, or poultry, or bones from dressed joints, chopped into small pieces, that are to be had, with a bunch of savoury herbs. Simmer gently until the gravy is thick and good. Strain, add salt and pepper, and a table-spoonful of mushroom ketchup, and put aside for use. Time, about three hours to simmer. Probable cost, 4d., exclusive of the bones. Sufficient for one pint of gravy.
A thrift gravy built on burnt toast, browned onions and whatever bones the kitchen already has. The colour and body come from the toast and the onions, not from a roux, so the browning stages are where the whole thing is won or lost.
- Brown the onions properly"Brightly browned" means deep golden-brown across the whole slice, not softened and pale. This is the main source of both colour and sweetness; underdo it and the gravy tastes thin and watery no matter how long it simmers.
- Toast, not charcoalThe bread should be dark brown and dry through, stopping short of black. Genuinely burnt toast turns the gravy acrid and bitter, and no amount of straining removes it. It also acts as the thickener as it breaks down.
- QuantitiesA quart of liquid reduces to the stated pint over the three hours: in imperial measure about 1.1 litres down to about 570 ml (in US cups, 4 down to 2). Plan on roughly half the liquid boiling away, and keep the heat at a bare simmer rather than topping it up.
- DrippingDripping, usually beef, was a common kitchen fat of the period and gives a rich result. Butter works, but it browns faster, so drop the heat slightly. Any neutral oil will do at the cost of some flavour.
- "Bones from dressed joints"Cooked bones and meat trimmings from a roast, plus poultry carcass scraps. A cracked or chopped carcass extracts far better than whole bones.
- Bunch of savoury herbsTypically a bundle of something like parsley, thyme and a bay leaf, tied with string. Add whole and pull it out before straining.
- Mushroom ketchupA thin, dark, salty mushroom-and-spice liquid, not a tomato sauce. It is still sold by specialist grocers; a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce or a dash of soy plus a little mushroom soaking liquid stands in for the savoury depth.
- Seasoning orderSalt only after reducing and straining. A quart reduced to a pint concentrates whatever salt came in with the stock and the ketchup, and it is easy to overshoot.
- Yield and keepingOne pint, as the recipe states. "Put aside for use" meant a cool larder; refrigerate and use within three days, or freeze in small portions.
This is a recipe about money rather than cookery. Cassell's prices it at fourpence "exclusive of the bones" because the bones were assumed to be already in the house, left from a joint that had been roasted, served hot, served cold, and only then surrendered to the stockpot. The trick of colouring gravy with hard-toasted bread is older than the book and belongs to a kitchen without stock cubes; browned onion, browned crust and browned flour were among the ways to get a dark sauce, and the toast had the advantage of thickening as well as colouring. Mushroom ketchup, the seasoning at the end, was a British storecupboard staple through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and was largely displaced by tomato ketchup and by proprietary bottled sauces later on. Making something usable out of the remains of a joint was treated as a foundation skill, not a variation.