Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Gravy

My grandmother made gravy with everything, for dinner we used plain white bread to mop it up, breakfast it was biscuits, I swear I remember her frying hamburgers and then making gravy, I think she did... they didn't waste a drop of food left in the pan as grease/drippings, they used it all to feed the family.

My wife makes great turkey and ham gravy, both, for thanksgiving, my daughter calls it the 'feast'. I strain the juice left in the roasting pans with a wire strainer into skillets, she adds flour and stirs as it thickens, adds water if needed after thickening, very easy and perfect.

Now fried meat gravy, white gravy, from drippings... bacon, sausage, steak, fried chicken, venison ect... a little more involved. What my grandmother and also the old hands in camp made. They called in pepper gravy, lots of black pepper and salt. Different than the white gravy you get in the restaurants as the roux, I guess it's called, is browned, the more browned the more flavor, I like to almost burn it, at least so you can smell it. much, much more flavor... and lots of pepper.

Bacon is the easiest to learn on as it has lots of grease, easy to make the roux, other meats if you don't have the grease in the pan you add bacon or vegetable oil to make the roux.

You need grease, flour, milk and salt/pepper, now sometimes in camp they would just use water if no milk and it was fine, I've never done it that way so my way is with milk.

Making gravy is heat control and feel, a couple times and you will have it, don't get discouraged, we all don't have a grandmother standing over us a couple times to help the learning process. Making the roux is the first step and it's pretty straight forward. Have enough grease to make a thin to medium paste for browning. For a couple to 4 people that would be enough to add a few heaping spoons of flour in and stir, keep stirring until desired brown.

Now comes the feel and heat, medium heat, as the milk hits the pan it will cool it down, if it's to hot the milk will boil over and turn into a clump. The flour needs to 'rise' or thicken but not to fast, if you add to much milk at first it will be runny.

You want enough milk at first to cool the pan down and be able to stir it all into a smooth runny mixture, about a minute later it should regain the heat and start to bubble, then thicken, you can almost see it rise, gain body, always stirring. Turn heat down when it bubbles, my stove has 10 numbers, I start at 5, medium and turn it down to 3 when it bubbles. Have the milk at hand and as it thicken add milk a little at a time, it'll cool the gravy then heat up, do it again if needed, always stirring, till it's your desired thickness and quits rising, add salt and pepper. Gravy should be light brown even though the roux was dark brown.

Feel and heat.

Kent

Found a picture I posted awhile ago here.

I'll be making elk gravy for my dad up at the cabin this weekend, his mother, my grandmother was the one I learned from. He called me today to make sure I remembered to bring the elk meat, I made some elk b&g a month ago from some from last years for him, he wants fresh meat, at 89 he gets whatever I can do for him.

Kent

We ate a lot of hamburger gravy with rice and browned burger meat when growing up. Usually had some onions softened up in the grease before the gravy was made too. For poor folks food I sure thought it was a treat.............and still do.

Almost always had gravy or sauce of some kind at dinner. In some neighborhoods of NY spaghetti sauce is called gravy even. And always bread for cleaning one's plate. Usually white (Italian or French along with "Wonder" bread) but sometimes we'd have Hillbilly bread, again that was a real treat too.

My wife doesn't like gravy, so when I make some I get it ALL!

What kind of gravy?

For white gravy, heat some sausage grease or lard in a skillet; maybe 3 or 4 tablepoons. Stir in roughly the same amount of flour to make a paste. Now add about 3 cups of milk, and at high heat, stir continuously until it begins to boil. Keep stirring and turn it down to simmer until it thickens. Salt and pepper to taste.

Or you can buy a gravy mix packet and follow the directions.

That reminds me of one of our favorite trailer trash meals... we have several... tuna gravy on rice, wife requests it all the time, my mother's recipe.

Couple cans of tuna in oil, cut the lids then turn the cans upside down and squeeze the lids putting the oil in the pan. Add a pat of butter and melt/simmer for a minute. Add a spoon of flour, it won't get smooth and creamy like grease or brown, more clumpy, but let cook a couple minutes turning it around. Add milk like other gravy and then it'll smooth right out, get it done, add a half can of cream of mushroom soup for that much, stir in and let simmer, add the tuna/salt/pepper last, then cover over a rice bed.

It sounds ewwww but really good.

Kent

Actually needing a recipe to make something as basic as gravy is pathetic. Using a mix is worse.

Teaspoon of red pepper flakes, just sayin'.

I cant' believe no one has mentioned Red Eye gravy yet!