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Brown Gravy
1/2 pint (I cup) water I blade mace 1 tablespoonful mushroom ketchup I shallot or small onion 1/4 teaspoonful kitchen bousliced I heaping teaspoonful flour I oz. (1 heaping tablespoonful) butter 1/2 teaspoonful meat extract quet Salt and pepper 1 teaspoonful lemon juice I bay leaf 1 wineglassful port wine Melt the butter in a fireproof dish, then fry in it the onion or shallot, sliced, add the flour, and brown it also, add all the rest of the ingredients except the wine, allow to boil for eight minutes, strain, add the wine, reheat, but do not allow it to boil, and serve. Another method is to pour away all the fat from the roasting dish, retaining the brown sediment, add to this one cupful of water, one teaspoonful of flour, half a teaspoonful of meat extract, seasoning of salt, pepper, and celery salt, a few drops of kitchen bouquet; stir till boiling, allow to boil for five minutes, stirring all the time. Strain into an earthenware gravy boat.
The ingredient list has come through the scanner with two columns interleaved, so read it as a list of pairs: water, a blade of mace, mushroom ketchup, a sliced shallot or small onion, kitchen bouquet, flour, butter, meat extract, salt and pepper, lemon juice, a bay leaf, and a wineglass of port.
- The hinge: the port goes in off the boilOnce the gravy is strained, the wine is stirred in and the pan only brought back to serving heat. Boiling port drives off its aroma and leaves a thin, slightly bitter edge, which is the whole reason the recipe separates the two stages.
- Quantities in modern termsHalf a pint is glossed here as one cup, which points to a 16 fl oz pint rather than the imperial 20 fl oz one. A wineglassful in books of this period is usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz, not a modern 6 oz pour. The butter is given as 1 oz, which the book itself equates with one heaping tablespoonful.
- Kitchen bouquetA dark commercial browning and seasoning liquid, still sold under that name. It is there for colour rather than flavour; a quarter teaspoon is a tint, and more will taste of caramel and salt.
- Meat extractBovril or a similar concentrated beef paste. Half a teaspoon in a cup of water is a very light broth, so taste before adding salt separately, since the extract and the ketchup are both salty.
- Mushroom ketchupA thin, dark, salty mushroom-and-spice liquid, closer to the bottled brown sauces than to anything tomato. Specialist grocers still stock it; soy sauce with a little Worcestershire is one common substitute, though the flavour is not identical.
- Blade maceA whole piece of the dried aril that surrounds nutmeg, meant to be infused and then strained out. If you only have ground mace, use a small pinch, since it will stay in the sauce.
- Fireproof dishThe butter is melted and the onion fried in it, so this has to be a dish that will take direct heat on the burner. Modern glazed earthenware is often oven-only; use a heavy saucepan or a cast-iron pan over moderate heat and expect the roux to brown a shade faster.
- Browning the flourThe flour is browned in the butter before the liquid goes in, and the eight minutes of boiling that follows cooks out the raw flour taste.
- YieldAbout a cup of finished sauce, enough for four servings alongside roast beef, lamb or game. The second method makes the same quantity from pan drippings and is the one to use when you have a roasting tin to deglaze.
Casserole cookery had a vogue in Britain and America in the years around the First World War, and glazed fireproof earthenware was widely promoted as able to go from burner to table. The recipe itself is Victorian in construction: a browned roux, an aromatic infusion of mace, bay and shallot, a bottled savoury flavouring or two, and a fortified wine added last. Mushroom ketchup and beef extract were both established pantry goods by then, standing in for the long-simmered meat stock an earlier generation of kitchens kept on the stove, and their presence here marks how much home cooking had already shifted onto the grocer's shelf.