Northerner needs to learn how to make Sausage Gravy

[Rick N Bama]

As others have already said, the English Muffins were most likely your problem. Sausage Gravy calls for Biscuits, the homemade type, not store bought and certainty not canned. The recipe on the bag of White Lily SR Flour makes a decent Biscuit.

[Hardcast416taylor]

The key item for any attempt at making gravy is copious amounts of Tobasco sauce on it!Robert

[texasnative46]

6bgt6ga,

Fwiw, the grease tha tyou have previously cooked fried chicken makes BETTER "white gravy". = After you've made the gravy, throw in the cooked/drained sausage.

And YES anything but homemade biscuits under the gravy is an abomination to us Southron boys/gals.

yours, tex

[rockrat]

I use Owens Hot Sausage. Save all the drippings and add flour to make a roux about as thick as a thick salsa. Brown it and just add the milk. You get chunks of drippings/flour, but work it with a spatula and it will be fine. I usually add pepper, salt and a little bit of powdered hot pepper (I use habanero--those of you with a less cast iron tongue might want cayenne pepper). Stir constantly over a med-low fire, so it won't burn, till the consistency you want. It goes from thin to thick fairly quickly. I usually add a couple of patties of sausage, broken up into smallish pieces, while stirring.

[Thundarstick]

Some of the things posted in this thread are an absolute abomination! May God have mercy on your soul!

[frankenfab]

A variable I see here is the type of flour used. I use self-rising. It's a more tedius process, but the end result is, fluffier?

You have to watch it carefully.

I use bacon grease, heat on 5 for a general reference. Add flour, whisk. When flour is cooked, add whole milk, turn heat up to 8. Add dried onion flakes to get them re-hydrating. Add a little salt, fresh ground black pepper, Cavender's. Whisk often, when the baking powder in the flour activates, the gravy gets thick really fast. Turn heat back down to 5. Have gallon of whole milk ready to add slowly if it gets too thick. Whisk, whisk, whisk. When you have the thickness where you want it, turn the heat down to 1 or 2.

Bacon grease gravy forms a skin pretty quickly when it cools. Adding oil or butter will reduce that tendency.

When the baking powder activates, I call that the bloom. On a electric stove, you need to move the skillet off to the side at that point. Add milk and whisk. Repeat.

To finish it after you have your desired thickness, put it back on the heat until it starts steaming or barely bubbling. Garnish with another round of fresh cracked pepper.

The only way to fix gravy that you have over-thinned is to make a little extra roux in a seperate pan, and add it to your gravy.

Aaaannd....


You have to have a whisk, people!

[6bg6ga]

6bgt6ga,

Fwiw, the grease tha tyou have previously cooked fried chicken makes BETTER "white gravy". = After you've made the gravy, throw in the cooked/drained sausage.

And YES anything but homemade biscuits under the gravy is an abomination to us Southron boys/gals.

yours, tex

Since I'm not from the south I'll keep my English Muffins you can keep your biscuits.

[frankenfab]

To make sausage gravy, add cooked sausage to above recipe.

[frankenfab]

English muffins equal sourdough bread. Sometimes I will substitute them for Texas toast with a good steak. Very tasty

[rdwarrior]

Agree with ThundarStick - you have to be born Suthern. I was born and raised in the midwest, but married a gal from South Carolina - where we live - and she can make sausage gravy - me - not so well , still cant get it right

[AllanD]

The way I make it (the way my mother did it) is
1lb of fresh uncased sausage broken up as it is cooked
1 medium onion chopped finely
1 tablespoon of Bells poultry seasoning
1 can Evaporated milk
Black pepper to taste
1/3cup of general purpose flour



Add the flour last after the sausage is fully cooked. it MAY require some water to thin the gravy depending on how runny you like it. Personally I like it to stay where it is put, but my mother always bitched it was too thick. but I don't want to eat it from a bowl with a spoon like soup.


I like it to stay up on the biscuit not all around it on the plate!

[texasnative46]

AlloanD,

My late mother often said that I made "mashed potatoes" out of white gravy. = I want mine ON the biscuits.

yours, tex

[AllanD]

Tex,

We seem to be in agreement against my (Late) Mom's opinion.

The one that wowed her was when I made a version of chipped beef she had not had before
that I had learned in USCG boot camp, not that I was in any way taking part in cooking it, but more a case that I liked their version of SOS from one particular crew in the Galley (the one directly supervised by "Mouse" (The MAA)) and recalled it 20-odd years later and it tasted as good as remembered.

I just had my eyes open during "galley week" in boot camp

It is basically a variation of Sausage gravy, but made with Ground Beef and More onions and a somewhat heavier hand with the pepper grinder. (and as I remember one of the cooks upending a quart Bottle of minced garlic into that big Hobart steam kettle in with all those onions and ground beef.

[Texas by God]

Bacon grease gravy for me on biscuits. Chicken grease gravy on mashed taters and CFS. Red eye on the taters when ham is present. I have summed me up.

[texasnative46]

AllanD,

You must be an OF like me to be an SOS fan. - The younger GIs don't even know what it is.
(I was a "recalled guy" during Desert Shield/Storm & one of my "additional duties" was supervising the large "consolidated mess" in the 200-700 building area.)
On the afternoon that I arrived on post, I checked in, picked-up the keys to my nine WWII era buildings & as I was leaving the Reception Center I was "flagged down" by a CW2. - I asked him if I could help him & he responded, "I'm your new mess steward" & he wanted to chat "- - - - with you about tomorrow's meal plans".
(We decided that we would "farm out" our arriving GIs to other mess halls for the next day & "be up & running fullspeed" the 2nd day. = I inquired if we would have SOS, eggs to order & biscuits. - The Chief said, "Sure enough. And waffles, pancakes & omelets, too.")

When "the word" got out on post that we had HOT biscuits & SOS every morning, we suddenly became the post's "Number One mess hall".
(The old Chief had to TEACH the young cooks to makes SOS, as that dish isn't on the Army Master Menu any more.)

Note: As we were a 19-77H Military Police command, our mess hall was open 24/7, as MPs work "weird shifts" & we served breakfast/supper all day/night.

yours, tex

[Boaz]

I might add pull the pan off the stove 30 sec before you get the thickness where you want it . It will continue to thicken a bit even after you put it into a container .

[The Governor]

http://www.foodnetwork.com/videos/re...-gravy-0236008

[lightman]

You'all are making me hungry! Biscuits and Gravy are my Wife's Sunday morning breakfast.

[AllanD]

I was in USCG-TRACEN cap may between March and May of 1980

So As I'm now 56, I guess I'm edging into "old fart" territory...


For the record I've never considered making Bacon Gravy... Bacon fat is too priceless
to use it up that way.

And priceless for frying eggs, though I have been known to use bacon grease instead of Oil in my cornbread.
I'm actually old enough to remember the "deli sliced dried beef" that used to be the main ingredient for "SOS" before the more recent technique of just browning ground beef to make it but I find the ground beef method easier and less subject to the "iffy" quality of some batches of Dried beef I have bought Deli corned beef round had it sliced slightly thicker and cut the whole stack into postage stamp sized pieces then made an evaporated milk & flour gravy (with Onions of course) and it made SOS that would make my grandmother happy

[Blanket]

ground beef for SOS is a abomination