Thing Twenty-Three: Sunday Gravy
Oct. 23rd, 2012 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badseed1980And I actually did make it on Sunday. I'm just a little late posting.
If you're not Italian (or, like most Rhode Islanders, sort of an honorary Italian by virtue of many years of exposure), you might think that gravy is a brownish liquid-y stuff made with drippings that you eat on roast beef or turkey or other roasted meats. Well, yes, it is. Fine. But Italians know (and so do I) that gravy, or Gravy, to give it the capital letter it deserves, is also a rich and meaty red sauce eaten with pasta. I made a lightened-up version of Gravy for Sunday dinner, which may be considered sacrilege, but it was still rich, flavorful, and full of meaty goodness.
To start building the base of the sauce, I sauteed onions, garlic, and half a grated carrot gently in olive oil. You don't want to brown this stuff, just sweat it nice and low until it gives up its moisture. That carrot is my answer to the common practice of adding a little sugar to tomato-based sauces to cut their acidity. I feel like it's too easy to add too much sugar and end up with a sweet sauce that is just nasty. The carrot does a fine job, especially if the tomatoes used aren't TOO acidic to begin with. I used boxed strained tomatoes, which I added to the Dutch oven when the aforementioned veggies were soft. I also added fresh herbs: basil, oregano, and a little thyme.
Then came the meat. It's important to start with meat on the bone. Those bones add flavor during the long, slow cooking process. I chose bone-in pork chops. I browned them over fairly high heat in olive oil, and dumped them into the sauce. Then came a quarter pound of Italian meatloaf mix (beef, pork, and veal) that I had left over from another recipe. I browned that too, and into the pot it went. (Note: if you're doing meatballs in your Gravy, this is the stuff you use to make them.) Next, since I wanted to keep it a bit lighter but still have lots of flavor, I browned a package of Italian chicken sausages. I figured these would probably be more flavorful than chicken or turkey meatballs. After browning them on all sides, I cut them into four pieces each and dumped them into the pot of sauce. Then, I took some chianti, and deglazed the skillet in which I'd done all this browning. Oh man, the fond. The fond, people. Gotta have that fond. I let it simmer for a minute or so, and then...you guessed it, I dumped it into the sauce.
At this point, my 6.5 qt. Le Creuset was struggling to contain all the stuff I'd put into it. The liquid level was about half an inch from the top. Well, that's OK, because the next step was long, slow cooking with the lid off. I let that stuff simmer gently for a little over three hours. About halfway through that, I added the bay leaf I'd forgotten. By the end of the three hours, the liquid level was down by about an inch and a half, the flavors were gorgeously intensified, and the pork was so tender it was falling off the bone. I fished it out and cut it up, discarding the bones. Traditionally, the Gravy itself is eaten with pasta first, followed by the meats that cooked in it (and these can also include things like braciola, short ribs, and meatballs). Me, though, I wanted it all together, so cutting up the pork made sense. My boyfriend and I ate a lot, but there was plenty left over to freeze two big containers of Gravy. Yay!
I feel proud of myself for making this, like it's something that needed to be checked off the Cooking Bucket List. It made the house smell AMAZING, too.
If you're not Italian (or, like most Rhode Islanders, sort of an honorary Italian by virtue of many years of exposure), you might think that gravy is a brownish liquid-y stuff made with drippings that you eat on roast beef or turkey or other roasted meats. Well, yes, it is. Fine. But Italians know (and so do I) that gravy, or Gravy, to give it the capital letter it deserves, is also a rich and meaty red sauce eaten with pasta. I made a lightened-up version of Gravy for Sunday dinner, which may be considered sacrilege, but it was still rich, flavorful, and full of meaty goodness.
To start building the base of the sauce, I sauteed onions, garlic, and half a grated carrot gently in olive oil. You don't want to brown this stuff, just sweat it nice and low until it gives up its moisture. That carrot is my answer to the common practice of adding a little sugar to tomato-based sauces to cut their acidity. I feel like it's too easy to add too much sugar and end up with a sweet sauce that is just nasty. The carrot does a fine job, especially if the tomatoes used aren't TOO acidic to begin with. I used boxed strained tomatoes, which I added to the Dutch oven when the aforementioned veggies were soft. I also added fresh herbs: basil, oregano, and a little thyme.
Then came the meat. It's important to start with meat on the bone. Those bones add flavor during the long, slow cooking process. I chose bone-in pork chops. I browned them over fairly high heat in olive oil, and dumped them into the sauce. Then came a quarter pound of Italian meatloaf mix (beef, pork, and veal) that I had left over from another recipe. I browned that too, and into the pot it went. (Note: if you're doing meatballs in your Gravy, this is the stuff you use to make them.) Next, since I wanted to keep it a bit lighter but still have lots of flavor, I browned a package of Italian chicken sausages. I figured these would probably be more flavorful than chicken or turkey meatballs. After browning them on all sides, I cut them into four pieces each and dumped them into the pot of sauce. Then, I took some chianti, and deglazed the skillet in which I'd done all this browning. Oh man, the fond. The fond, people. Gotta have that fond. I let it simmer for a minute or so, and then...you guessed it, I dumped it into the sauce.
At this point, my 6.5 qt. Le Creuset was struggling to contain all the stuff I'd put into it. The liquid level was about half an inch from the top. Well, that's OK, because the next step was long, slow cooking with the lid off. I let that stuff simmer gently for a little over three hours. About halfway through that, I added the bay leaf I'd forgotten. By the end of the three hours, the liquid level was down by about an inch and a half, the flavors were gorgeously intensified, and the pork was so tender it was falling off the bone. I fished it out and cut it up, discarding the bones. Traditionally, the Gravy itself is eaten with pasta first, followed by the meats that cooked in it (and these can also include things like braciola, short ribs, and meatballs). Me, though, I wanted it all together, so cutting up the pork made sense. My boyfriend and I ate a lot, but there was plenty left over to freeze two big containers of Gravy. Yay!
I feel proud of myself for making this, like it's something that needed to be checked off the Cooking Bucket List. It made the house smell AMAZING, too.
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