Someone will be along shortly to tell me I do it wrong, but this is the way I make it, people like it, and it works for me.
The SO prefers bacon to sausages with her breakfast; so we tend to have bacon on-hand, but no sausage. So when it’s a biscuits and gravy morning, it’s usually bacon gravy. I can already hear people shouting, ‘Bacon gravy? Everyone knows it has to be sausage gravy!’ Nevertheless.
Take four rashers of bacon and cut them in half. Stack the halves and cut them in half. Cut the quarters in half. Separate the pieces into a saucepan and cook over low heat to render the fat. Mix in an amount of flour about equal to the amount of fat. Mix it together (including the bacon pieces) and continue cooking to ‘toast’ your roux. Add some milk and mix smooth, dissolving the flour into it. Add seasonings. I use a healthy pinch of kosher(ing) salt, about 40 grinds of black pepper (YMMV, depending on your grinder), and two dashes of cayenne pepper. Add more milk. Stir and simmer until thickened.
This morning we happen to have some leftover Jimmy Dean’s sausage. I make the gravy the same as in the last paragraph, except instead of bacon I ‘crumbled’ a half-pound of raw sausage into the pan to render the needed fat.
No ham. But I use dried sage and ground fennel in addition to ground pepper and a bit of cayenne. I use either JD sage sausage or a local fresh sage sausage, along with fried up pepper bacon. I use a combination of half & half and skim milk (since that’s what the wife drinks) as liquid. I also add a (un)healthy chunk of butter at the end to give it that silky look and feel, not to mention enriching the taste even further. I’ve even added onions in my shady past, but don’t usually. Tradition can kiss my ass.
The one thing I crave madly on this diet is biscuits and gravy. Fucking hell.
Growing up in New England, the words “breakfast” and “gravy” were never used in the same sentence. To this day, I’ve never had it. Nothing against it, it just seems so odd.
Sounds tasty. Serve with grits, eggs, biscuits, and whichever meat is in the gravy. Orange juice, if you’ve got it. And maybe pancakes or waffles with syrup.
I never tried it until I was in my thirties and visiting with friends who would have been rude to refuse. I was a quick convert. Bacon just doesn’t sound as appealing to me though.
ETA: Also - fried chicken and waffles? Yeah, that works too :).
There’s a restaurant here that serves chicken and waffles. Haven’t gone yet, because they don’t take reservations and I won’t stand in line for a meal.
Growing up in a household that always had a Reader’s Digest within arm’s reach of each toilet, sentences whose first word ends in “ing” always remind me of Reader’s Digest.
(I believe Chefguy’s posted recipe on this board includes both. It’s great, if not traditional.)
