Home › The Principles of Cookery › Sage and Onion Gravy
Sage and Onion Gravy
Prepare a little more sage and onion stuffing than is required, and rub a portion of it through a sieve. Mix with the pulp as much good stock as will make the requisite quantity of gravy, add a spoonful of Harvey's Sauce, let all boil up once, and serve.
A thrift gravy built from surplus stuffing rather than pan drippings, so its success depends entirely on the stuffing being well seasoned to begin with. Two things need translating: the bottled sauce, and the sieving.
- Make extra stuffing deliberatelyThe recipe assumes you are already stuffing a goose, duck or loin of pork, and that you make a little more than the bird will hold. How much gravy a given quantity of pulp yields depends on the stuffing, so judge it by eye as you add the stock.
- Harvey's SauceA Victorian bottled condiment, typically anchovy, soy, vinegar and spice, with recipes varying from maker to maker; no longer commercially produced. Worcestershire sauce is the closest thing on a modern shelf and belongs to the same family; use a teaspoon or two and taste, as it is saltier than the stock.
- Sieving the pulpRubbing cooked stuffing through a fine sieve with the back of a ladle is still the best method for a smooth result, since bread and onion break down but sage leaves and any suet do not. A blender is faster but gives a paler, foamier gravy; if you use one, strain afterwards.
- "Good stock"Means a stock with body, not water with a cube in it. Giblet stock from the same bird would suit, though the recipe does not specify. Add it gradually to the pulp so you can judge the thickness.
- Boil up once and no moreThe instruction is simply to bring it to the boil and serve. Prolonged simmering does the sauce no favours in any case: bread thickening can catch on the pan base. Bring it just to a boil, check the seasoning, and take it off.
- ConsistencyBread-thickened gravy keeps setting as it cools and will be noticeably stiffer in the sauceboat than in the pan. Leave it a shade thinner than you want, and hold back a little stock to loosen it at the last moment.
- ServingServe alongside roast pork, goose or duck. The recipe leaves the quantity to the cook, being made to whatever amount of gravy is wanted.
Sage and onion is the English stuffing for fat meats, goose and pork above all, the sage cutting through richness in the same way apple sauce does. Its principle is economy: a cook who has already made stuffing has, in effect, already made the base of a sauce, and a sieve turns one into the other with no further outlay. Harvey's Sauce, called for as the finishing note, was among the most widely used bottled sauces of nineteenth-century Britain, an anchovy-and-soy relish sold alongside mushroom ketchup and Reading sauce; recipes of the period reach for it as casually as a modern cook reaches for Worcestershire, which is its nearest surviving relative. Its steady appearance in Victorian cookery books is a reminder of how early the commercial condiment bottle became a standing item in the domestic kitchen.