[Sca-cooks] My Christmas dinner & LOOT

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Robin Carroll-Mann:
>Adamantius commented:
>Also sprach Robin Carroll-Mann:
>>  Christmas dinner was a beef roast, accompanied by roasted root
>>  vegetables, and my first-ever Yorkshire pudding.  It came out well,
>>  but would have been better with some gravy, I think.
>>
>>  Yes, it's a conundrum. If you either roast the vegetables in the same
>>  pan as the beef, or cook the pudding in it (some older recipes
>>  recommend this), gravy integrity can be compromised.
>
>My problem was that I didn't have any gravy, and the roast (a small eye of
>round) did not produce enough drippings to make gravy.  If I'd been 
>thinking, I
>would have bought a different cut of meat, and/or a jar of gravy.

I had an eye round too, but it was massive (purchased by spouse with 
eyes bigger than stomach), and barded, so fat was more in evidence. 
You'd be surprised, though, how you can get a sort of characteristic 
eye-round gravy from that cut, even if there isn't enough fat to do 
the roux thing. If you ever have to deal with this particular 
situation again, my recommendation (and very similar to what I 
actually did) is to make a brown roux (just barely darker than peanut 
butter is a good color) in a saucepan with (ideally) some of the fat 
from the meat, but failing that, olive oil or other reasonably 
complimentary / non-clashing fat source. I'd go with a can of beef 
stock, something like College Inn or Swanson's, whisked into that 
roux (which is made with maybe 1 heaping tablespoon of flour and an 
equal amount of fat). When the meat is done, you can then deglaze the 
pan with your nearly-finished gravy, which sort of marries the 
semi-artificial gravy with the pan drippings (which with an eye round 
frequently don't amount to much in volume, but are highly colored, 
highly caramelized (but not bitter) and usually quite flavorful.

I have learned from limited, but highly effective, experience, that 
there seems to be no good commercially prepared gravy. It always 
seems to be too salty, taste not enough like the meat it was 
allegedly made from, and is almost invariably thickened with some 
weird substance that leaves a peculiar mouth feel (I _like_ potato 
starch, but not in gravy. Waxy maize has its place. Even modified 
food starch... but when I see gravy my mouth expects flour which has 
been toasted to some varying extent).

For an eye round I might consider keeping the gravy comparatively 
thin, since the flavor is fairly delicate. I sometimes add a little 
body to it with some powdered gelatin, to give it a sort of neutral 
richness (there'd be gelatin in it anyway, if made with real homemade 
stock).

>The veggies (carrots, parsnips, potatoes, and shallots) were roasted in a pan
>separate from the beef, with olive oil, garlic, thyme, and black pepper.  Very
>tasty.
>
>The Yorkshire pudding was baked in a small cast-iron skillet.

It all sounds lovely! Hmmm. Leftover roast beef with sour cream horseradish...

A.