Gravy-Kettle
This is an utensil which will not be found in every kitchen; but it is a useful one where it is necessary GRAVY-KETTLE. to keep gravies hot for the purpose of pouring over various dishes as they are cooking. It is made of copper, and should consequently be heated over the hot-plate, if there be one, or a charcoal stove.
GRAVY SOUP.
Gravy made without Meat (for Fowls.) - INGREDIENTS. - The necks, feet, livers and gizzards of the fowls, 1 slice of toasted bread, 1/2 onion, 1 faggot of savoury herbs, salt and pepper to taste, 1/2 pint of water, thickening of butter and flour, 1 dessertspoonful of ketchup. AVERAGE COST, 2d.
Wash the feet of the fowls thoroughly clean, and cut them and the neck into small pieces. Put these into a stewpan with the bread, onions, herbs, seasoning, livers and gizzards; pour the water over them and simmer gently for 1 hour. Now take out the liver, pound it, and strain the liquor to it. Add a thickening of butter and flour, and a flavouring of mushroom ketchup; boil it up and serve.
TIME.-1 hour.
Gravy, Rich (for Hashes, Ragoûts, &c.) - INGREDIENTS.-2 lbs. of shin of beef, 1 large onion or a few shalots, a little flour, a bunch of savoury herbs, 2 blades of mace, 2 or 3 cloves, 4 whole allspice, 1/4 teaspoonful of whole pepper, 1 slice of lean ham or bacon, 1/2 a head of celery (when at hand), 2 pints of boiling water, salt and cayenne to taste. AVERAGE COST, 9d. per pint.
Cut the beef into thin slices, as also the onions, dredge them with flour, and fry of a pale brown, but do not allow them to get black; pour in the boiling water, let it boil up and skim. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer the whole very gently for 2 hours, or until all the juices are extracted from the meat; put it by to get cold, when take off all the fat. This gravy may be flavoured with ketchup, store sauces, wine or, in fact, anything that may give additional and suitable relish to the dish it is intended for.
TIME. Rather more than 2 hours.
The entry opens as a note on a piece of copperware and then runs straight into two gravy recipes, which is how Mrs Beeton's alphabetical dictionary pages tend to behave. Both gravies are usable; the equipment note is now purely historical.
- The gravy-kettle itselfA copper vessel for keeping gravy hot, heated over the hot-plate or a charcoal stove, as the text directs. A modern small saucepan on the lowest burner, or a heatproof jug in a pan of hot water, does the same work. Unlined antique copper should not be used for cooking at all, as bare copper reacts with acidic and salty liquids.
- Faggot of savoury herbsA tied bundle, roughly what we call a bouquet garni: parsley stalks, thyme and a bay leaf. Tie it with string so it lifts out whole.
- Thickening of butter and flourButter and flour worked together and stirred into the boiling liquid; the recipe does not say in what proportion or whether raw or cooked first, and Beeton's separate thickening is made in a pan. For half a pint of liquid, roughly 15 g each of butter and flour gives a light pouring gravy; add it a little at a time and boil briefly so the flour loses its raw taste.
- Mushroom ketchupA thin, dark, salty mushroom extract, nothing like tomato ketchup. It is still sold; a teaspoon of soy sauce plus a dash of Worcestershire sauce is the closest substitute if not.
- Fowl feet and gibletsFeet need to be scalded and the outer yellow skin and nails removed before they go in the pot, and gizzards must be split and the gritty lining pulled out. Both are sold at halal and Chinese butchers; feet give the gravy real body from their gelatine. If they are unavailable, a couple of chicken wings will substitute for the necks and feet, though with less gloss.
- Shin of beefBeef shank, sold as shin or gravy beef. It is the right cut for the second recipe: sinewy, gelatinous, and cheap, which fits the average cost given of 9d a pint. Two pints of boiling water over 2 lb of meat simmered gently for two hours will lose some volume to evaporation, though the recipe gives no target yield.
- Blades of maceThe dried outer casing (aril) of nutmeg, sold whole as blades. A quarter teaspoon of ground mace stands in, though the recipe itself simmers the whole blades for the full two hours.
- Cooling and keepingThe instruction to "put it by to get cold" then lift off the set fat is sound practice, but cool it quickly in a shallow dish rather than leaving a warm pot standing about, and refrigerate. Skimmed, the gravy keeps three or four days chilled and freezes well in ice-cube trays.
- Cayenne and saltSalt at the end, not the start. Long simmering concentrates whatever you put in early, and a ham or bacon slice is already contributing salt of its own.
Both of these belong to a kitchen where nothing edible left the house unused: the necks, feet, livers and gizzards of a bird were the raw material of the sauce that went over it, and the cost is reckoned in tuppence. The rich gravy is a smaller, faster relative of the great household stock pot, made from shin of beef because shin was generally reckoned among the cheapest cuts and one of the richest in connective tissue, and it was kept as a base to be pushed in any direction with "ketchup, store sauces, wine or, in fact, anything" — the store sauces being the bottled mushroom, walnut and anchovy essences that a Victorian larder carried in place of stock cubes. The gravy-kettle note is a reminder of how the recipes were meant to be cooked: on an open range with a hot-plate and a charcoal stove for delicate work, where a copper vessel could be parked at a gentle heat for as long as the roast took. Copper conducted well and is generally said to have been the standard material in professional kitchens, but it had to be kept freshly tinned inside, and the Victorian household manuals return to that point repeatedly.