Nut Gravy
1 pint water 2 tablespoons nut butter 2 tablespoons flour 1 teaspoon salt Blend nut butter with water, heat to boiling, and thicken with the flour stirred smooth with a little cold water. Add salt.
Use one tablespoon dark-brown flour with the white flour to make Brown Nut
A vegetarian gravy built on nut butter rather than meat drippings, thickened with a flour slurry. It comes together in under ten minutes and needs only one thing done carefully.
- The hinge: blend before you heatNut butter is much harder to disperse once the water is hot, and tends to go lumpy. Whisk the 2 tablespoons of nut butter with a few tablespoons of the cold water first to make a smooth cream, then thin it with the rest of the pint before it goes on the heat.
- What "nut butter" meantThe recipe does not specify a nut; period nut butters were typically plain ground nuts with nothing else added. Use a natural, unsweetened, unhydrogenated nut butter; a sweetened commercial spread will make the gravy cloying. Stir the jar well so you get the oil as well as the solids.
- Dark-brown flourFlour dry-toasted in a pan or a low oven until it is the colour of cinnamon, a preparation common in period cookery. Toast a batch over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, and keep it in a jar. The recipe's wording is ambiguous as to whether the tablespoon of brown flour is part of the 2 tablespoons or additional to it; toasted flour thickens less than raw flour, so if you count it within the 2 tablespoons expect a slightly looser sauce.
- Cooking out the flourAfter the slurry goes in, let the gravy bubble gently for three to five minutes, stirring. Anything less and the raw flour taste stays with it.
- SaltA teaspoon of salt to a pint is on the high side by current taste, especially if the nut butter is already salted. Add half, then correct at the end.
- Yield and consistencyA pint makes roughly 2 cups, enough for four to six servings over rice, potatoes, toast or a nut roast. Two tablespoons of flour to a pint gives a thin pouring gravy; use three for something that will coat.
- Holding and reheatingIt thickens as it cools and the nut oil tends to separate. Whisk in a splash of water over low heat to bring it back rather than stirring it hard while hot.