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Chicken Gravy
Put into a stockpot the bones and trimmings of a fowl or chicken with a small quantity of stock and boil them; add flour and butter (previously browned to a light brown) to thicken it and then place the pot at the side of the stove and let it simmer. Stir well, and after the gravy has simmered for some time, skim and strain it, and it is then ready for use.
A working kitchen's gravy built on chicken bones and a browned roux, written for cooks who already had stock on the stove. The proportions are left to judgement, so a few numbers help.
- QuantitiesThe recipe asks only for "a small quantity of stock" to cover the bones and trimmings; the amount is left entirely to judgement, and the yield will depend on how much liquid you start with and how far it reduces.
- The browned roux is the whole point"flour and butter (previously browned to a light brown)" is a roux cooked separately before it goes in, and taken only to a light brown, not a dark one. About 3 tablespoons each of butter and flour per 2 cups of liquid is a workable starting ratio, stirred over medium heat until it smells nutty. Browned flour thickens less than pale flour, so do not stint.
- "The side of the stove"On a coal range the cooler edge of the top held a pot at a bare simmer. On a gas or electric hob that is the lowest setting, or a heat diffuser. The gravy should barely move; a hard boil emulsifies the fat back in and makes skimming pointless.
- Bones first, brown themBones first -- The recipe does not say whether the trimmings are raw or left from a cooked bird. If they are raw, roasting them in a hot oven before they go into the pot will give a darker, deeper gravy.
- Simmering time"Some time" means at least 45 minutes and up to two hours. Bones give up their gelatin slowly, and the roux needs 20 minutes at minimum to lose the taste of raw flour.
- Skim, then strain, in that orderFat rises to the still surface at the pot's edge; lift it with a ladle or a folded paper towel. Straining a fatty gravy through a sieve just redistributes the fat.
- SeasoningNo salt or pepper is specified at any stage. Taste at the end and season then.
Oscar Tschirky was the Waldorf's maître d'hôtel from 1893, and the 1896 Cook Book that carries his name is less a home manual than a transcription of hotel kitchen practice, compiled from that kitchen rather than written by him, which may be why entries like this one give a method and no measurements: the brigade cook, one presumes, knew the ratios and needed only the sequence. Gravy of this kind sits between two French categories the Waldorf kitchen would have recognised, the jus made from roasting bones and the sauce espagnole thickened with a brown roux, and the recipe's insistence on browning the flour and butter beforehand rather than in the pot is straight from that tradition. The instruction to move the pot "to the side of the stove" dates the page as precisely as any ingredient would: it belongs to the era of the coal-fired range, whose surface ran from searing hot over the firebox to gently warm at the margins, and whose cooks controlled heat by moving pots rather than turning a dial.