From Dave Smith

Our most beloved cookbooks are well-used… smeared, smudged, splotched, spattered, stained. The histories of their usefulness and the meals cooked from them can be surmised from the tattered covers and the spotted pages within.

Being a no-nonsense utilitarian cook with a limited, adventureless range, I know how to put some basic meals together well enough to get by without the recipes in books stacked in the kitchen library. I may become inspired by a post in this blog, or check some ingredients and measurements in Joy of Cooking if the coming meal is complicated, but the many collected cookbooks mainly sit there pristine, lonely, unfulfilled.

Except for Jack’s Skillet – Plain Talk and Some Recipes from a Guy in the Kitchen by Jack Butler. The stories were delightful when I first read them, and the recipes ones I would not have naturally used, and the book built around a guy’s life and a familiar utensil seldom romanticised except in old westerns, and written by a very good, down-home writer whom I once met in a bookstore… it just captured my imagination enough to get me into the kitchen to try some new things, a few of which I now use on a regular basis.

You can read a story from this book in a previous post from months ago – Buttermilk Biscuits Stuffed with Goat Cheese. That recipe came from a chapter called Tomato Gravy and Biscuits. To get the real color and charming background to all this, you’ll have to read the book, as I only provided the biscuit recipe part of the chapter while adding my own organic twists. But, now, here, finally, is the rest of the recipe, part of the ingredients out of a, yes… can!:

On to the tomato gravy (complete recipe below). What you do now, when the biscuits are in the oven, is heat some oil in your black iron skillet, four or five tablespoons’ worth. Add some fresh-ground black pepper to the oil first, and don’t let it get smoking hot. I say oil. My mother used lard. I used to use butter or margarine, though they scorch pretty quickly. Olive oil does just fine. [Oops! See Jeff's What's The Right Oil For Kitchen Use]. Stir the pepper and oil with a spatula, and toss in the whole onion you’ve just chopped. Keep stirring. Browned onions are simply glorious, and the odor is your first reward. (Actually, nowadays, I use garlic…)

When the onions have just begun to turn translucent, sprinkle in a couple of heaping teaspoons of flour and stir to get a smooth, velvety mix. Cajun aficionados will recognize that we are crating a roux. You want to brown the roux just slightly but without scorching the onions, an operation that requires practice and delicacy.

When you’ve got the roux just right, turn the heat down to low and open one of those cans of tomatoes. Pour in the juice gently, a bit at a time, stirring to blend in the roux. If the sauce seems too thick, add water. When you’ve added all the liquid, add the tomatoes, which you should gleefully chop and mash and stir with your spatula. Bring the heat back up to medium or medium-high and linger over the skillet, mashing and stirring. You want the gravy to simmer, not bubble. This is when I add salt to taste. I don’t believe in adding salt too early. It dries things up and interferes with the osmosis. Simmer and stir, keeping the bottom of the skillet clean, until the gravy is as thick and rich as you like. For me, that’s pretty thick and rich.

By now the biscuits should be ready, golden brown on top but not hard on the bottom. Take them out and butter them, all of them, while they’re hot. (Sure, I butter my biscuits before I put the gravy on them. Doesn’t everybody?) I forgot to tell you, you should have a big old glass of cold milk standing by because you’re about to eat one of those suckers right there and then. It will be piping hot, dripping with butter, and you’re going to eat it plain — no jam, no gravy. It’s the cook’s responsibility to make sure they came out right, isn’t it?

You heap a nice linen-covered basket with your creations. You pour the gravy into a gravy boat. Before you pour, you notice with pleasure that a nice skin has formed on the surface. It’s cold outside. Your friends in the dining room are going crazy. How much longer do you plan to keep them waiting?

Tomato Gravy

4 – 5 tablespoons shortening
Freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 onion, finely chopped
2 teaspoons unbleached white flour
1 can [organic, please] stewed tomatoes (28 to 32 ounces)
Salt, to taste

If you have them, substitute a quart of home-canned tomatoes for the commercially canned variety. Garlic lovers may substitute 4 to 6 cloves minced garlic for the onion. For shortening you may use leftover bacon grease, pure lard, butter or margarine, olive oil, or other good cooking oil.

Total preparation and cooking time: 30 – 35 minutes.

1. Heat shortening in skillet on high heat till just before smoking. Reduce heat to medium. Mill generous portions of pepper directly into the skillet. Add chopped onion and sauté till slightly translucent, stirring constantly with a spatula. Sprinkle flour over shortening-onion mix. Stir with spatula until flour begins to form a brown roux. Add tomatoes (with juice) gradually, stirring to blend with roux. Mash tomatoes with spatula and continue blending. If roux is too thick, dilute with water. Add salt to taste.

2. Reduce heat to low and simmer till ready, about 20 minutes.

Makes enough gravy for 6 to 9 biscuits.

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Dave Smith is author of To Be of Use: The Seven Seeds of Meaningful Work and lives in Mendocino Country, Northern California.
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