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Veal Gravy
Take one pound of lean ham cut in slices and a knuckle of veal cut up and put them into a well-buttered stewpan with any bones of chickens and rabbits which may be at hand; pour two quarts of stock over this, cover it and boil it down to a glaze. When it is a deep red fill it up with stock; as soon as it boils skim well; add three or four cloves, two blades of mace, three good-sized carrots and the same amount of chopped celery, onions and turnips. Let it simmer for about three hours, then strain it through a tammy sieve into a pan to cool for use.
This is a classic French-style veal stock reduced twice — a working base rather than a finished sauce. The single thing that matters is the first reduction: the meat and bones must cook down until the liquid is a sticky brown glaze on the bottom of the pan before any more stock goes in.
- Boil it down to a glazeTwo quarts reduce to a few tablespoons of syrupy residue that caramelises against the pan. Watch it closely at the end — the sugars go from deep red to burnt in a minute or two, and a scorched glaze ruins the whole pot.
- Knuckle of vealThe lower leg joint, sold now as veal shank or osso buco cut, or ask a butcher for veal knuckle bones. It is valued above all for gelatin; a knuckle of a few pounds suits two quarts of liquid.
- Stock, not waterOscar assumes a stockpot always going in a hotel kitchen. A light unsalted chicken or veal stock works; salted commercial broth will concentrate to something inedible during the reduction.
- Lean hamA pound of sliced country ham or unsmoked gammon. Heavily smoked supermarket ham will dominate the finished gravy — the ham is here for salt and savour, not smoke.
- Blades of maceMace is the lacy covering of the nutmeg seed; a blade is one whole piece. Two blades are roughly a quarter teaspoon of ground mace, though note that the recipe itself adds its mace at the start of the simmer.
- Tammy sieveA tammy was a worsted cloth strainer. Use a fine mesh strainer lined with dampened muslin or a coffee filter, and let it drip rather than pressing, or the gravy will be cloudy.
- Cooling and keepingCool it uncovered to room temperature quickly, then refrigerate; the fat sets on top as a seal and lifts off in a disc. The yield depends on how much stock goes in at the second filling, which the recipe leaves unmeasured; it keeps three or four days chilled or freezes well in cubes.
- How it was usedThis is not poured over a roast as it stands. It is a moistening liquid for brown sauces, braises and ragouts.
Oscar Tschirky was the Waldorf's maître d'hôtel rather than its chef, but the kitchen he worked alongside was organised on French lines, with a handful of mother liquids made in quantity and everything else built from them. A "gravy" in this sense is closer to what a French kitchen called jus or fond brun than to the pan sauce Americans mean by the word today. The double reduction — boiling stock down onto the meat until it glazes, then dissolving the glaze in fresh stock — builds colour and depth without browning the bones in an oven first, and it is why the recipe insists on "deep red" as the signal to proceed. The casual mention of chicken and rabbit bones "which may be at hand" suggests hotel economy: a kitchen butchering whole animals had trimmings to absorb.