I was watching an episode of Hazel and Mr Griffith invites himself to dinner. Hazel says she is serving turkey, and Mr Griffith goes on and asks Hazel to make, oyster dressing, mashed potatoes and brown gravy.
OK I’ve heard of brown gravy but what exactly is it?
I would think with turkey you’d make TURKEY gravy. I always thought brown gravy was just a common name for beef gravy? A quick google says “you can make brown gravy from: beef, pork, chicken, or turkey.”
So what about brown gravy makes it brown? I mean if you use turkey drippings how do you get it to be brown gravy and not turkey gravy?
Brown gravy can be made with beef, pork, chicken, turkey, pheasant, etc. Turkey gravy is made with turkey drippings.
A brown gravy is simply the drippings from whatever you are roasting combined with a thickener–a roux, cornstarch, etc. It is cooked and reduced, flavored to taste and best served immediately.
Umm, which word don’t you understand? It’s gravy, and it’s brown.
Turkey is often served with white gravy, usually from the addition of milk or cream. Brown gravy could be any form of gravy that is brown. The color either comes from the main flavoring like the drippings, or from browned flour, a dark sauce added like Worcestershire or Soy, or from leaving the pot on the stove for too long.
You could lightly brown the flour first, as per a roux. Or, maybe they are using the term “brown” gravy loosely. (Probably the scriptwriters were men who really didn’t know anything about it.)
You let the flour brown a bit. With white or cream gravy, you cook the flour, but don’t let it brown. With brown gravy, either you start off with toasted flour, or you cook the roux a bit to let the color develop before adding the liquid.
If you want a specific beast, then it’s Beastname Gravy (turkey gravy, beef gravy, etc.) Brown gravy is just…brown. If it’s made from beef, then it’s brown because of the beef. If it’s made from some other beast (or no beast at all, as is common in cafeterias), it gets the brown color from a dark roux and/or caramel coloring.
The OP should note that its the rouxing/caramelizing that gives a brown gravy a different flavor than a white/creamy/just a thick liquid made with drippings kinda of gravy. There’s brown gravy thats brown because the source material was brown or coloring was added. Then there’s the gravy thats brown because it was cooked differently (and its going to taste different too).
I, for one, have never seen nor eaten white turkey gravy. My mother used to make what she called cream chicken gravy, which I thought was nasty stuff. Gravy for pepper steak can be a cream gravy, and it’s terrific.
It’s brown turkey gravy instead of white turkey gravy.
In the example in the OP, of course it’s turkey gravy, since you’re making turkey. You don’t need to specify what kind of meat to make it from, unless for some reason Mr. Griffith wants Hazel to make brown beef gravy. If you just called it gravy, then she wouldn’t know whether you wanted brown gravy or white gravy.
I’ve made it and had it from others. I prefer brown myself. And of course sausage gravy for biscuits and gravy would fit in the white gravy category. It’s just a descriptive phrase.
Veloute is made with white roux and white stock, Demi-glace is made with brown roux and brown stock, bechamel is made with white roux and dairy. Since the turkey is roasted, the drippings are, defacto, brown stock and thus, brown gravy is made from it.
I remember the southern mother of a friend of mine. She had this bottle of liquid stuff she would pour into a cast iron skillet to brown with other ingredients. Called BVE or some such. IIRC it was basically bottled cows blood. Now, I have nutin against eating a nice slab of beef, but for some reason that bottled blood squeeked me out a bit. I just tried not to think about it much as I enjoyed that great gravy
