Cooking with Marge: Perfect White Gravy

I don't do gravy.  Why?  For the same reason I don't do watermelon, coconut, or pickles.

It's disgusting.

However, Rick's step-grandmother, Marge (who happens to be the sweetest lady on the planet) makes delicious gravy.  I tried it once because everyone at the table (except Marge, of course) was hassling me about how I won't eat gravy and found, to my surprise, that it was delicious.  So I tried to make her chicken fried chicken (which is my husband's very favorite dish) with mashed potatoes and gravy.  The chicken fried chicken was delish (sometime I'll share that recipe too - Marge had me come early to a family dinner one day and showed me all her secrets), but the gravy...well...not so much.  We ended up throwing it away, it was so bad.  I told Marge about the experience (I don't think she's ever had a mishap in the kitchen, bless her) and she again invited me to family dinner early so I could watch her - or, that's what I thought was going to happen.  She actually made me do it.  I'm a teacher so I was wise to her ways!  I documented the procedure as best I could while cooking:

 INGREDIENTS:

These are the necessary ingredients: oil, milk, water (or stock, if you have it), beef granules, and/or chicken granules (depending on what you are serving - we were doing chicken fried steak, so we used both), and flour.  A few important points about the ingredients:

• Marge says have them all out and within close reach.  The most crucial part of the process goes very fast, so you don't want to be running around the kitchen getting stuff - you want to just be able to grab and dump.
• Marge says to eyeball the amounts.  Right....

HEATING THE OIL

Cover the bottom of a skillet with CLEAN oil.  DO NOT use the drippings from the meat.  It is lumpy and not the way Marge does things.  This is a large skillet because we were making a ton, but normally you would use a smaller skillet.  Warm over medium heat.

Stay close and test the oil.  You don't want it too hot because it will scald and brown, but you don't want it to be not hot enough, because then it the flour will mush up.  To test, drop a pinch of flour into the hot oil.  If it dances and sizzles briefly, it's ready.

If you look close, you can see the sizzling

ADDING THE FLOUR AND MILK
This is where it can all go horribly wrong if you aren't watching very carefully!  Add flour to the oil in small doses, stirring rapidly as you go.  This picture is so bad, but you can see all the bubbling and that's exactly what you want.  You want to stir and eliminate clumps as quickly as possible!  Add milk, and mix some more

If there are too many lumps, remove from heat quickly, fix the lumps, and then put it back.  Nailing this step is crucial to the success of the gravy!

ADDING OTHER INGREDIENTS
Once the mixture begins to thicken, add a small amount of water.  I say small because you can always add more if you need it, but you can't take it back.

 Add some granules and stir, stir, stir.  Reduce heat and add milk and/or water until you get the desired consistency.  Marge likes it kind of in the middle - not so thick that it's like a paste, but not so thin that it drips right off the spoon - it sort of rolls off the spoon.  Perfect.

And what a pretty plate: 1 piece of chicken-fried steak, a hearty helping of green beans and carrots, and some mashed potatoes with mmm mmm gravy!  A bit of a splurge diet-wise, but sooooooo delicious!