Vern's Southern Style Tomato Gravy
This recipe will serve 4 normal people. Great served on Vern's Southern Style Buttermilk Biscuits.
This recipe will serve 4 normal people. Great served on Vern's Southern Style Buttermilk Biscuits.
- Carbohydrate 5.77637317372949 g
- Cholesterol 38.641370525 mg
- Fat 91.090476955663 g
- Fiber 0.184171622345415 g
- Protein 11.7692456590659 g
- Saturated Fat 14.6079812206126 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (160g)
- Sodium 164.536069509404 mg
- Sugar 5.59220155138407 g
- Trans Fat 5.16292686820954 g
- Calories 880 calories
Step-by-step
- In a large cast iron skillet, brown beef or sausage or both (if both total weight still 1/2 pound), add salt and pepper to taste and remove meat and set aside when browned.
- Leave 8-10 tablespoons of grease left over from ground beef and heat in same large cast iron skillet.
- Slowly add flour covering grease Stir to completely mix grease and flour.. Brown flour completely till almost burnt. Medium brown
- Pour canned tomatoes with juice in a medium bowl and crush tomatoes with hand, Pour into gravy mix, stiring. Add cooked beef, stir slowly.
- Mix 1/2 cup of milk with 1 cup of water
- Add 11/2 can of water, add more or less water to thicken or thinning the sauce.
- Stiring with wooden spoon
- Turn heat down to med-low, Cook slowly, while still stiring. Gravy will start to rise and thicken.
- Stir slowly using a wooken spoon. Until desired texture. Add more water if desired, 1/8 cup at a time.
- Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Serve over Vern's Southern style Buttermilk biscuits, hand crumbled. I use at lease 4 biscuits in plate.
- Optional servered with Vern's Southern Pepper Relish and Avery's Tobasco Sauce.
- You might have guessed, I love hot pepper
Building a sturdy tomato gravy requires browning flour past the blond stage until it reaches a deep medium-brown hue, which reduces its starch thickening power while developing toasted, nutty aromatics. When self-raising flour hits hot fat in a cast iron skillet, the chemical leaveners react alongside the starches, so controlling the heat prevents scorching the proteins before the roux is fully cooked. Cast iron retains thermal energy exceptionally well, meaning operators must drop the burner to medium-low immediately after incorporating liquids to prevent violent bubbling and splattering. Hand-crushing canned whole tomatoes introduces raw fruit pieces and varying juice volumes that demand incremental liquid adjustments, using water or milk ratios to calibrate viscosity precisely while the sauce simmers down. Traditional southern adaptations frequently feature crushed meat and acidic condiments like pepper relish to balance the rich viscosity of the pan sauce.
The Science of Roux and Acid
Fats extracted from ground beef or sausage coat the flour particles evenly, insulating them against sudden heat spikes that cause lumpy starches. Introducing canned tomatoes adds malic and citric acids, which interact with the toasted flour base and slightly slacken the starch network, necessitating patient simmering over moderate heat to achieve a glossy finish. Stirring continuously with a wooden spoon scrapes the bottom of the skillet, ensuring caramelized fond integrates smoothly into the liquid rather than burning.Textural Calibration
Achieving the characteristic velvety density relies on regulating evaporation rates during the final reduction phase. Adding water in precise eighth-cup increments allows adjustments to the thickness without shocking the emulsion, yielding a savory sauce robust enough to coat split buttermilk biscuits without making the crumb soggy.
