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GRAVY MAIGRE FOR FISH (sometimes called Root Gravy)
Cut half a clove of garlic, an onion, a carrot, and a turnip into small pieces, and fry them brown in a piece of butter the size of a large egg. Pour slowly over them a quarter of a pint of cold water and add a few grains of cayenne, half a tea-spoonful of salt, three cloves, two sprigs of parsley, one of thyme, half a dozen button-mushrooms, and another lump of butter, rolled thickly in flour. Simmer gently for about twenty minutes, and before straining add half a tumblerful of sherry or Madeira. Time, altogether, about three-quarters of an hour. Sufficient for three-quarters of a pint of gravy. Probable cost, 4d., exclusive of the wine.
A meatless brown gravy built on root vegetables and fortified wine, intended as the base for fish sauces on fast days. The liquid quantities as printed do not add up to the stated yield, so read the whole thing before starting.
- The liquid is shortA quarter of a pint of water plus half a tumbler of wine is roughly 9 fl oz, yet the recipe claims to make three-quarters of a pint (15 fl oz). Either the vegetables are meant to be moistened, browned further, and then let down with more water or a light fish stock, or a figure has been dropped. Add water as needed to reach the volume you want, tasting as you go — the wine will otherwise dominate.
- Butter the size of a large eggAbout 2 oz, or 4 tablespoons. The second "lump" rolled thickly in flour is a beurre manié, roughly 1 oz butter worked with 1 to 2 tablespoons flour; it is the thickener and should be stirred in a little at a time so it disperses rather than lumping.
- Old measuresA quarter of a pint is 5 fl oz in imperial measure, a scant two-thirds of a US cup. A tumbler was an ordinary drinking glass, variously reckoned at about 8 to 10 fl oz, so half a tumblerful is roughly 4 to 5 fl oz of sherry or Madeira.
- The two times conflictThe two times -- Twenty minutes of gentle simmering is the actual cooking; the three-quarters of an hour is given as the total, presumably taking in the chopping and the initial browning of the vegetables. Do not simmer for the full 45 minutes or the volume will collapse.
- Brown means brownMuch of the colour and depth of this gravy comes from browning the carrot, turnip and onion in butter. Take them well past golden over moderate heat, without letting the butter blacken. Rushing this step gives a pale, thin sauce with nothing behind the wine.
- Wine goes in last, brieflyAdding the sherry or Madeira before straining leaves it barely cooked and quite sharp. Give it two or three minutes at a simmer to take the raw edge off; use a dry or medium sherry, not a cream sherry, unless you want sweetness.
- Cloves and cayenneThree whole cloves in 9 fl oz of liquid is assertive by modern taste. Two is safer, and the "few grains" of cayenne means a scant pinch, not a quarter-teaspoon.
- Yield and useThree-quarters of a pint of gravy, as the recipe states. It is a base rather than a finished sauce: strain it, then reduce slightly and enrich with a knob of cold butter, or use it to moisten a fish stew or braise.
Maigre is simply the French for lean, and a gravy maigre is one made without meat, for the days when meat was not eaten — Fridays, Ember days and the whole of Lent. Fish needed sauce, and sauce conventionally needed meat stock, so cookery books of the period carried a parallel set of fast-day foundations built instead on root vegetables, mushrooms, herbs and fortified wine, which is why this one also travels under the plainer English name of root gravy. Cassell's, writing for late nineteenth-century middle-class households, gives the probable cost at fourpence exclusive of wine, a reminder that these books were as much budgeting manuals as instruction. The technique of browning aromatics hard in butter and thickening with a flour-and-butter paste comes from the French repertoire that was by then well established in English professional cooking.