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To Make Gravy
75. Gravy is always made after the meat is taken up, except when what is called "made-gravy" is intended to be used, as for game and poultry, in which there is no osmazome pressed out in the roasting, and consequently nothing to make it of in the dripping-pan. With mutton, beef, and butcher's meat generally, after the meat is taken up, so as to liberate the dripping-pan, the fat in that vessel is poured off, and then a small quantity of boiling water is put into it, and thoroughly washed over its surface by moving it horizontally with a little dexterity, leaving it in while the spit, skewers, &c., are being removed, after which the water, now become gravy, is poured into the dish containing the meat, and is often of very excellent quality, depending greatly upon the manipulations of the cook and the age of the meat. BASTING. 76. Basting is the most important of all the requisites for roasting, and it is for want of its being properly done that roast joints are so constantly spoiled. In fat meats, such as beef, mutton, or pork, their own dripping, after it has run into the well of the pan, is the best thing for the purpose; but in poultry, veal, and game there is nothing coming out which will serve, and they must be basted either with plain butter (good salt or potted), mutton or beef dripping, water and salt, milk, melted-butter, or sometimes with cider, ale, or wine. DREDGING. 77. Dredging is another item connected with roasting, and requires a tin box with a perforated lid, called a dredger, This usually holds wheat-flour; but for some joints, &c., this is mixed with grated bread, or dried herbs, or grated lemon or orange-peel. The dredger is shaken over the roast at short intervals, so that its contents remain on the surface, and form with the fat oozing out a kind of coating, which is sometimes intentionally made very thick, as for hare; but these coatings are not now so common, or fashionable either, as they 7
This is deglazing, described before the word was in common English use: the roasting pan is rinsed with a little boiling water and the resulting liquid poured straight over the meat. It works, but only if the pan has genuinely browned residue in it.
- The hinge: pour off the fat firstAll of the rendered fat must come out before the water goes in, or you get a greasy emulsion rather than gravy. Tip the pan and pour off the clear fat, leaving the dark sediment behind.
- OsmazomeAn obsolete term from 19th-century food chemistry for the savoury, water-soluble extract of meat, thought at the time to be a single substance. What is actually being described is the browned residue of proteins and sugars in the pan, and the term can simply be read as "meat flavour".
- How much waterThe recipe asks only for "a small quantity" of boiling water, with no measure. For a domestic roasting tin, roughly 4 to 6 fl oz (120-175 ml) is usually enough to lift the sediment without diluting it into nothing. Scrape the pan with a wooden spoon rather than relying on swirling alone.
- Modern roasting tinsThe instruction assumes a dripping-pan set beneath a turning spit, with a well to catch the fat (the text refers to "the well of the pan"). In an oven tin the meat sits in its own juices and the fat and sediment are mixed, so pouring off the fat matters more, and a spoon does the work the "horizontal movement" once did.
- "Made-gravy"For poultry and game the book expects a gravy prepared separately, because a lean bird presses out nothing in the roasting and leaves little in the pan; this passage does not say what such a gravy was made from. A well-reduced stock, seasoned and lightly thickened, is the modern equivalent.
- SeasoningNone is specified. Season with salt and pepper after deglazing, and taste before it reaches the dish, since the strength depends entirely on how well the joint browned.
- YieldA single deglazing of this kind gives only a small amount of liquid. This is a thin, unthickened jus meant to moisten the meat, not a poured sauce for potatoes.
- Basting substitutesWhere the text offers "potted" butter for basting lean birds, use ordinary butter, clarified if you are roasting hot, as it will not scorch as readily as whole butter.