It's also rich with meaty, tomatoey flavor. I made my first run at gravy several years ago with my extremely Italian roommate on hand for authenticity policing. As I am wont to do, I searched for recipes, reading through them until I could patchwork a recipe of my own, a Frankenstein of tastiness based on what ingredients I could acquire. The result was a success, a powerhouse of rounded-out tomato flavor, its natural acidity balanced by the breakdown of sugars only time could achieve. Meatiness from oxtails and pork ribs simmered until the meat fairly dissolved into the sauce. Sausages cooked so low and slow they snapped apart like pillowy hot dogs, meatballs that fell apart at the touch of a fork.
Years would pass, and I would learn things. Enough things to understand what I was doing with this dish, able to look at it through the lens of an outsider, someone who didn't have generations of traditions steering my hand. And it occurred to me, the longer I stared at the various recipes, that this was no longer a tomato sauce, or even a tomatoey stew.
Of course, tomato is going to be the primary flavor. Sunday gravy is traditionally thin, something that pours freely from a plate at fifteen degrees. And yet it has an intense depth of flavor as opposed to the singular bright acidity of faster sauces, like marinara. Tomato paste plays a part in every recipe I've seen for a very good reason - paste is derived from tomatoes that have been dehydrated, usually through roasting. This step, this product, means that the typical flavor of the tomato is enhanced by the caramelizaton the roasting process induces, leading to a natural sweetness that can't be imitated.
But that's only half the story. The fact is, when you're talking about Sunday gravy, you're talking about stock. That hefty meatiness that balances out the tomatoey goodness, that silky mouth feel that sets the gravy apart from common sauce comes from gelatin. And you get gelatin from bones. Oxtails, short ribs, the butcher cuts and scrap meats of the day come together to create a tangible richness despite the gravy's thinness. Of course, it goes without saying that these cuts should be browned before use. The Maillard reaction is a vital element in any long-cooked application; the snowball principle will always apply. Build flavors along the way, and your final result will benefit exponentially.
When you think about it, there's a reason Sunday gravy is such a standby. Why it's revered, why it comforts and brings people together. Scrap cuts abounded in the working-class households the dish was born in. Tomato sauce was thinned to extend the volume and feeding power of the meal, but without sacrificing flavor. The volume it would have to be made in to properly extract the gelatin from those bones demanded a gigantic family meal. The abundance of glutamates in tomatoes were a natural match for the beef and pork within. The bulk was augmented with meatballs and sausage, classic applications and extensions of ground meat.
Sunday gravy is a truly magnificent dish, one worth learning, studying, and keeping on file for a rainy day. Even if you've got nothing to link you to it from a traditional standpoint, I highly recommend taking the time to give it a shot. After all, traditions have to start somewhere, yeah?
(Don't worry, after all this talk of gravy, I'll be making a batch soon. I'll toss up a 'recipe' when it's time.)
No comments:
Post a Comment