Home › The Principles of Cookery › Household Gravy, Superior
Household Gravy, Superior
Take one pound of lean veal from the fillet. Put it into a stewpan, and with it any trimmings and bones of beef, veal, or mutton; but they must be perfectly sweet, or they will spoil the gravy. Add half a pint of water, and simmer gently until a light glaze is formed at the bottom of the stewpan; then add a pint and a half of water, a small onion with one clove stuck in it, three springs of parsley and one of thyme, a small carrot, a bay-leaf, half a tea-spoonful of salt, and a quarter of a tea-spoonful of pepper. Boil; then draw the saucepan to the side of the fire, and let its contents simmer gently for one hour. It must be only partially covered, or the gravy will not be clear. Take the fat off carefully, strain the broth, and put it aside for use. It will keep for three or four days if boiled occasionally and kept without cover in a cool place. A few spoonfuls will improve sauces and gravies. The veal will be found excellent if cut into convenient-sized pieces and served with a few stewed mushrooms and a little of the gravy. Sufficient for a pint and half. Probable cost, 1s. 2d.
This is a light veal stock in the classic English style, built on a browned glaze rather than roasted bones, and it doubles as a way of poaching a pound of veal for a second dish. Two things carry it: letting the first half-pint of water reduce until it films the pan, and never letting the pot come back to a real boil afterwards.
- The glaze is the whole recipeSimmering the veal and bones in only half a pint of water until "a light glaze is formed at the bottom of the stewpan" means reducing the liquid away entirely so the meat juices caramelise into a sticky brown film. That fond is where the colour and savour come from; stop short of it and you get pale, thin broth, take it too far and it turns bitter.
- Imperial measuresCassell's pints are imperial: half a pint is 10 imperial fl oz (a little over 1 US cup), a pint and a half is 30 imperial fl oz (about 3 1/2 US cups). Scale by volume, not by American pints, or the ratios drift.
- Lean veal from the filletIn period English butchery the fillet of veal usually means the leg: boneless and lean. If veal is unavailable or unwanted, a lean piece of shin or thick flank of beef behaves similarly, though the result will be darker and less delicate than the pale gravy intended here.
- Partially covered, for clarityThe uncovered gap is not fussiness. A tight lid returns condensed steam to the pot and keeps it agitating, which emulsifies fat and albumen into the liquid and clouds it. Keep the surface barely trembling and lift the fat and scum as it collects.
- "Perfectly sweet" trimmingsIn period usage sweet means fresh, not tainted. Bones and trimmings that have gone off will not be rescued by long cooking, and one sour piece flavours the whole quantity.
- Season at the end insteadHalf a teaspoon of salt is fine for a stock that will be reduced into sauces, but if you plan to serve the liquid as gravy, hold the salt until after straining and any reduction, when you can judge the concentration.
- StorageIgnore the instruction to keep it uncovered in a cool place and reboil it occasionally: that is larder practice from before refrigeration. Cool it quickly, refrigerate covered and use within three days, or freeze it. Frozen in an ice-cube tray it gives you the "few spoonfuls" the recipe recommends for enriching sauces.
- Yield and the second dishAbout 3 1/2 US cups of stock (the recipe's pint and a half, imperial), plus a pound of cooked veal. The poached veal is genuinely worth eating as directed, with mushrooms stewed in butter and a little of the gravy, but it needs generous seasoning and perhaps a squeeze of lemon, having given most of its savour to the pot.
Nineteenth-century English kitchens ran on stock, and cookery dictionaries like Cassell's graded their gravy recipes by expense: a plain household gravy might be made from bones and water alone, while this "superior" version sacrifices a whole pound of lean veal to it. Veal was often favoured as a base for such things because it gives body and gelatine without the assertive flavour of beef or mutton, which is why French kitchens of the same period built their fonds on it. The economy of the recipe is characteristic of the period's careful bookkeeping: the meat is not thrown away but recovered as a dish in its own right, and the stated cost of 1s. 2d. let a housekeeper weigh the outlay against a cheaper alternative. The instruction to boil the stock up every day or two and keep it uncovered in a cool larder is a reminder that reheating was one of the household's chief means of keeping it sound.