Gravy, Brown
INGREDIENTS. - 2 oz. of butter, 2 large onions, 2 lbs. of shin of beef, 2 small slices of lean bacon (if at hand), salt and whole pepper to taste, 3 cloves, 2 quarts of water. For thickening, 2 oz. of butter, 3 oz. of flour. AVERAGE CosT, 6d. per pint.
Put the butter into a stewpan; set this on the fire, throw in the onions cut in rings, and fry them a light brown; then add the beef and bacon, which should be cut into small square pieces; season, and pour in a teacupful of water; let it boil for about ten minutes, or until it is of a nice brown colour, occasionally stirring the contents.
Now fill up with water in the above proportion; let it boil up, when draw it to the side of the fire to simmer very gently for 1½ hour; strain, and when cold, take off all the fat. In thickening this gravy, melt 3 oz. of butter in a stewpan, add 2 oz. of flour, and stir till of a light-brown colour; when cold, add to it the strained gravy, and boil it up quickly. This thickening may be kept in larger quantities, and kept in a stone jar for use when wanted.
TIME.-Altogether 2 hours.
Gravy, Brown, without Meat. -INGREDIENTS. -2 large onions, 1 large carrot, 2 oz. of butter, 3 pints of boiling water, 1 bunch of savoury herbs, a wineglassful of good beer; salt and pepper to taste. AVERAGE COST, 4d.
Slice, flour and fry the onions and carrots in the butter until of a nice light-brown colour, then add the boiling water and the remaining ingredients; let the whole stew gently for about an hour, then strain, and when cold, skim off all the fat. Thicken it, and if thought necessary, add a few drops of colouring.
TIME.-1 hour.
Note. The addition of a small quantity of mushroom ketchup or Harvey's sauce very much mproves the flavour of this gravy.
GRAVY, CHEAP.
INGREDIENTS.
Gravy, Cheap (for Minced Veal.)cold roast or boiled veal, 1½ pint of water, 1 Bones and trimmings of onion, 1/4 teaspoonful of minced lemon-peel, teaspoonful of salt, 1 blade of pounded butter and flour. AVERAGE COST, exclusive mace, the juice of 1/4 lemon; thickening of of the trimmings, 2d.
Put all the ingredients into a stewpan, except the thickening and lemon-juice, and let them simmer very gently for rather more than 1 hour, or until the liquor is reduced to a pint, when strain through a hair sieve. Add a thickening of butter and flour, and the lemon-juice; set it on the fire, and let it just boil up, when it will be ready for use. It may be flavoured with a little tomato sauce, and, where a rather dark-coloured gravy is not objected to, ketchup, or Harvey's sauce, may be added at pleasure.
TIME. Rather more than 1 hour.
INGREDIENTS. -Bones and trimmings of the Gravy, Cheap (for Hashes, &c.) ful of salt, 1/4 teaspoonful of whole pepper, 1/4 cooked joint intended for hashing, teaspoonteaspoonful of whole allspice, a small faggot of savoury herbs, 1/2 head of celery, 1 onion, 1 oz. of butter, thickening, sufficient boiling water to cover the bones. AVERAGE COST, exclusive of the bones and trimmings, 4d. them into a stewpan with the trimmings, Chop the bones in small pieces, and put salt, pepper, spice, herbs and celery. Cover with boiling water, and let the whole simthe onion in the butter till it is of a pale mer gently for 1½ or 2 hours. Slice and fry brown, and mix it gradually with the gravy made from the bones boil for 1/4 hour, and strain into a basin; now put it back into the stewpan; flavour with walnut pickle or ketchup, pickled-onion liquor, or any store sauce that may be preferred. Thicken with a little butter and flour, kneaded together on a plate, and the gravy will be ready for use. After the thickening is added, the gravy should just boil to take off the rawness of the flour.
TIME.-2 hours or rather more.
Gravy (for Roast Meat.) - INGREDIENTS.-Gravy, salt.
Put a common dish with a small quantity of salt in it under the meat, about a quarter of an hour before it is removed from the fire. When the dish is full, take it away, baste the meat, and pour the gravy into the dish on which the joint is to be served.
GRAVY, JUGGED.
Gravy (for Venison.) - INGREDIENTS. -Trimmings of venison, 3 or 4 mutton shank-bones, salt to taste, 1 pint of water, 2 teaspoonfuls of walnut ketchup.
Brown the trimmings over a nice clear fire, and put them in a stewpan with the shank-bones and water; simmer gently for 2 hours, strain and skim, and add the walnut ketchup and a seasoning of salt.
Let it just boil, when it is ready to serve.
TIME.-2 hours.
Gravy, Jugged. (Excellent.) -INGREDIENTS.-2 lbs. of shin of beef, 1/4 lb. of lean ham, 1 onion or a few shalots, 2 pints of water, salt and whole pepper to taste, 1 blade of mace, a faggot of savoury herbs, 1/2 a large carrot, 1/2 a head of celery. AVERAGE COST, 2s. for this quantity.
Cut up the beef and ham into small pieces, and slice the vegetables; take a jar, capable of holding two pints of water, and arrange therein in layers, the ham, meat, vegetables, and seasoning, alternately filling up with the above quantity of water; tie down the jar, or put a plate over the top, so that the steam may not escape; place it in the oven, and let it remain there from 6 to 8 hours; should, however, the oven be very hot, less time will be required. When sufficiently cooked, strain the gravy, and when cold remove the fat. It may be flavoured with ketchup, wines, or any other store sauce that may be preferred. It is a good plan to put the jar in a cool oven over-night, to draw the gravy; and then it will not require so long baking the following day.
TIME. From 6 to 8 hours, according to the oven.
Six gravies in one entry, ranging from a full beef stock to a meatless brown gravy and a set of thrift recipes built on bones. The techniques are sound; the vocabulary, the vessels and one overnight instruction need translating.
- The roux quantities contradict themselvesThe ingredient list for the brown gravy says 2 oz butter to 3 oz flour, the method says 3 oz butter to 2 oz flour. Either works: roughly equal weights gives a standard brown roux, and 2 oz of each will thicken about a quart of liquid to sauce consistency.
- Cook the roux dark, and mind the temperature clashThis is the hinge of the first recipe. The flour must be stirred over gentle heat until genuinely light brown, which kills the raw taste but also weakens its thickening power. Beeton adds cold gravy to cold roux; adding warm liquid to a cold roux (or vice versa) is what prevents lumps, so avoid pouring hot into hot.
- Teacupful and other loose measuresA Victorian teacupful is around 5 fl oz, a quarter of an imperial pint. "A faggot of savoury herbs" is a bouquet garni: parsley, thyme and bay tied with string. A "blade" of mace is one thin fragment of the aril, not a teaspoon of ground.
- Shin of beefBeef shank, sold bone-in or as boneless shin. Its collagen is the whole point: it gives the gravy body that lean cuts cannot.
- Vanished condimentsHarvey's sauce was a spiced anchovy-and-soy bottled sauce, long discontinued; Worcestershire is the nearest survivor. Mushroom and walnut ketchups are thin, dark, salty and nothing like tomato ketchup; mushroom ketchup is still made commercially, and a splash of soy plus a little mushroom soaking liquor stands in. "A few drops of colouring" means gravy browning, essentially caramelised sugar.
- The jugged gravy ovenA sealed stoneware jar held six to eight hours is a slow extraction, not a bake. Set a covered heatproof jar or small casserole in a water bath at 275-300F. What you should skip is the instruction to leave the jar in a cooling oven overnight: raw beef and ham held for hours at blood heat allow bacteria to multiply and, in the case of Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus cereus, to leave behind toxins that later cooking will not destroy. Start the jar in the morning instead.
- Meatless brown gravyFlouring the sliced onion and carrot before frying is deliberate; the flour browns in the butter and both colours and thickens the finished sauce. The wineglass of beer is about 2 fl oz and wants to be a mild ale rather than anything heavily hopped, which turns bitter on reduction.
- Gravy for roast meatThis is simply the dripping-pan juice, caught in a dish with salt in it during the last fifteen minutes at the fire. In an oven, tip the roasting-tin juices off, let the fat rise and spoon it away, and season the clear liquid beneath.
- Hair sieveA sieve of woven horsehair, used because metal could taint a delicate liquid. Any fine mesh strainer serves; line it with damp muslin if you want the gravy clear.
These entries come from the gravy section of Mrs Beeton's household compendium, and they show a kitchen organised around not wasting anything. Bones and trimmings from yesterday's joint become today's sauce for the hash; a batch of brown roux is made once and stored in a stone jar; even the venison gravy is scaffolded on mutton shank-bones because venison trimmings alone would not go far. Gravy in this period meant a meat essence in its own right rather than the pan juices of a single roast, and a well-run house kept a supply of it the way a modern kitchen keeps stock in the freezer. The entries carry costs, some per pint and some for the quantity made, and it is often suggested that such pricing was part of Beeton's appeal, letting a mistress check the cook's housekeeping book. "Jugged" simply describes the method, sealing food in an earthenware jar set in a slow oven or a pan of water, the same principle as jugged hare, which draws out flavour without the evaporation of open boiling.