Yes, We Do Put MIlk in Gravy!

 

With much of the east coast under a  winter storm advisory  with  inches  of the white stuff in the offing, I'd say it was just the right time for  home baked biscuits with  sausage gravy.  If you need a fool proof delicious homemade biscuit recipe, these are all over the internet..  the original Hardee's recipe  Now I  won't be able to make any, because our store has not had my favorite  pork sausage since covid.. Apparently, it is  a rather small   company and they just can't seem to get their product out to the stores.    In a pinch I  will use Gunnoe's.

 

But there is just something so perfect about Neese's  country sausage.  We always purchase the  sage  variety.. which tastes almost exactly the way I remember my grandma's  homemade sausage tasted.   I've tried other sausages and to me they're just lacking.. so I wait and hope!!

Also, I had a couple of comments  from readers who said they  never thought of adding   milk to gravy.  Oh, my, I can't imagine not adding  creamy milk to country gravy, which is much richer than  Thanks- giving turkey gravy where I can understand  no milk,, maybe.   And actually this  particular recipe isn't exactly as rich looking as my grandma's...   it looks a bit  thinner  and probably added more milk that I do when  I make mine.  So  I'd say add just the  right amount of milk  that suits  your tastes.  I would start with a cup then add  a bit more as needed.. for once you've added too much  you can't reverse it.

Country Style Sausage Gravy

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound pork breakfast sausage
• 1 Tablespoon of butter , bacon fat 
• 1/4 cup of all purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper , or to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt , or to taste
• 3 to 4 cups of milk , more or less, as needed .... I'd say this is  much more than needed..  see note  below in the recipe

Instructions

1. Brown sausage in a large skillet, breaking up and crumbling the meat as it cooks.
2. Once the meat is fully browned, if the sausage did not produce much fat, stir in the butter, or bacon fat to the skillet until melted.
3. Sprinkle the flour on top of the meat and bring the pan up to a medium high heat.  Now you're making a roue'   so the  pasty  look on the meat  needs to  be stirred and  allowed to brown  a bit to cook the flour.  Sometimes I might add just a touch more flour to make sure  there is enough roue'  to make the amount of gray I am aiming at! You don't want a raw  flour taste.
4. Grind pepper directly into the gravy, add salt to taste, mix well.
5. Cook, stirring often, for 5 minutes.
6. Slowly begin whisking in the first two cups ( careful, maybe a cup at a time  or  1.5 c  at first    not too much, now) of milk until fully incorporated and mixture begins to bubbled thicken **** I would be  careful about wondering if I needed  more milk at this point..  a runny  gravy  is well bleh!
7. ****Continue whisking in additional milk a little bit at a time, until the gravy reaches the desired consistency.
8. Serve with biscuits.
    
   (I will  add here over Christmas in New England it is impossible to find  great  country sausage.. But at  Stop and Shop or whatever it's called  I bought some Italian link sausage  with out the spices  and after unwrapping it and adding my own sage salt and pepper  and it tasted pretty good!!)
   My sausage gravy usually looks a bit more like one of these  or a combination..  everyone's is a bit different I suppose! At any rate. a bit thicker!  hehehe
   
   
   

   
   

   

   
   Note: We southerners  really like our  bacon and  sausage  cooked really done and  crispy!!  Hope I didn't  confuse everyone,  but    if you've never had  country  sausage gravy,  give it try over this  cold and snowy    week.   It will  really taste  good on a cold and blustery mornin'!