Thursday, October 09, 2008

Recipe for the day.

Earlier this week I was saying that curiosity is one of the most underrated human traits.

It got me thinking that gravy was the cuisine equivalent to curiosity. But a little research reveals that it's not that underrated, a guy called Dave Axworthy from Nova Scotia legally changed his forename to Gravy because he was infatuated with the stuff. And in Australia you can get yourself some gravy flavoured chips. (I remain a little dubious about those).

If you want the one of the best gravys in the world, make this roast. It's Richard Till's recipe. And oh my that gravy is sensational, the onions, oh the onions. You could throw away the meat and just drink the gravy.

Ingredients

1 leg of hogget.
3 lg onions
½ bottle of red wine, plus some more for gravy.
Salt and pepper
Flour for gravy

Method

This is important! Slice onions into thin crescents. Slices from top to bottom rather than across into half rings. The onions break down, sweeten and brown much more easily when cut this way.
Make a bed of onions in the roasting pan.
Season onions with 1 ½ tsp salt.
Place leg on onions.
Tip over ½ a bottle of red wine.
Cover and seal tightly with foil.
Put into 160 C for 5 hours.
Loosen the foil in a corner, to allow steam to escape, for the last hour.

Gravy

Method

Take meat from pan, cover and rest in warm place.
Carefully tip of excess fat, but leave some in the pan to brown the flour in.
Put on an element and add flour (about 4 Tbl)
Cook, stirring and taking great care that nothing starts to burn in the pan, for a minute, until the flour is cooked, then add water and a cup of red wine.
Simmer, check seasoning, tip into gravy boat and lick pan.

Serving

Meat will cut with a blunt spoon.

You're welcome.

4 comments:

savannah said...

"Meat will cut with a blunt spoon."

reason enough to try the recipe, sugar! xoxo

(have you always had comment moderation?)

laughykate said...

That recipe comes thoroughly tested and highly recommended. And, not wanting to bang on about the gravy too much (but I will), you can either scoop the onions out and serve them separately or as part of the liquidy goodness.

And yes, always had comment mod.

PallidBust said...

Rachel Lucas wrote that you're looking for cooking festivals. Well, as a native born son of the sovereign State of Louisiana (best in the nation when our cities aren't being obliterated by hurricanes), I thought I'd mention the Couchon De Lait. Learn more here:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/7539/a_guide_to_the_couchon_de_lait.html

Probably not as much fun for Jews and Muslims, given the main ingredient, but for all swine eaters I say "Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez!"

PB

laughykate said...

Oh thank you so much! Really appreciate it.