Appalachian-Style Skillet Sausage Gravy
Sawmill Gravy
Liquid Gold & The Iron Skillet: Foundations & Pantry
This isn't a delicate parlor sauce. It takes ten minutes while the pork fat hisses to build a cheap, hyper-caloric masterpiece of culinary resourcefulness, demanding only the mastery of a hot cast-iron skillet and the patience to coax a dark, peppery roux out of rendered pork fat. Scrape the pan with a wooden spoon, hit it with coarse black pepper, and serve that thick gravy cascading over a split buttermilk biscuit.
Ingredients
- bulk pork breakfast sausage1 lb
- all-purpose flour1/4 cup
- whole milk3 cup
- coarse black pepper1 tsp
- kosher saltto taste
Method
- 01
Brown the sausage and render the fat.
Place a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat and break the sausage apart into small crumbles as it cooks. Cook until deeply browned with no pink remaining, about 6 to 8 minutes; do not drain the fat, as you need those 3 to 4 tablespoons of rendered grease to build the sauce.
- 02
Create a localized roux directly in the skillet.
Reduce the heat to medium-low, sprinkle the flour evenly over the meat and bubbling fat, and stir constantly for 2 to 3 full minutes. This toasts the starch to a pale golden brown and eliminates the raw, paste-like flavor of the flour.
- 03
Slowly incorporate the milk while scraping the fond.
Stirring continuously, pour in a half cup of the milk, which will almost immediately sizzle and absorb into the flour. Slowly drizzle in another 2 cups of milk while whisking to prevent lumps, making sure to scrape up all the dark, caramelized bits of meat stuck to the bottom of the iron skillet.
- 04
Simmer gently until the gravy thickens.
Allow the gravy to come to a gentle simmer—never a hard boil—and stir occasionally for 3 to 5 minutes until it coats the back of a spoon. It will thicken significantly as it cools; if it becomes too tight, simply stir in the remaining half cup of milk to loosen it up.
- 05
Season aggressively and serve.
Stir in the black pepper, then taste before adding salt, as commercial sausage sodium levels vary wildly. Serve immediately, ladled heavily over warm biscuits, white toast, or even hot steamed rice.
Notes
Adapting for a pork-free kitchen.
Turkey or beef sausage works perfectly for this, but they are notoriously lean and lack the necessary fat. Once the meat is browned, simply melt 3 tablespoons of butter or neutral oil into the skillet before sprinkling in the flour to maintain the structural integrity of the roux.
Fixing a thin gravy.
Never dump raw flour directly into hot gravy unless you want unpalatable dumplings. If it is too thin, ladle out a half-cup of the hot liquid, whisk a tablespoon of flour into it to create a smooth slurry, and pour it back into the skillet to simmer and thicken.
From Cook Southern Food.