Pan Gravies

Beef with red-eye gravy. Coffee and beef!

Difficulty: Easy

Prep time: up to ten minutes

Cooking time: 1 to 5 minutes

Cost per serving: $0.50 to $2.00 or more if you use fancy ingredients like expensive mushrooms

Useful leftovers: Depends

Making a pan sauce or gravy is easy and delicious. It has a bad name because of some bad practices but we'll avoid those.

The idea of a pan gravy is to make a fast, tasty sauce using the caramelized brown bits left in the bottom of the pan and a flavorful liquid. It's the cheapskate's perfect way to add flavor to sauteed meats or vegetables.

Some caveats:

- If the stuff in the bottom of the pan is burned it won't make a tasty sauce. It will taste burned.
- In traditional French cooking your pan sauce would have lots of butter in it. We'll avoid that.
- The liquids and seasoning used in the gravy must be flavorful and complement the food to be sauced.

The general rules for making a pan gravy are:

- Take the sauteed or roasted items out of the pan and keep warm
- Cook aromatics in the pan
- Add liquids and reduce
- Season

Pork tenderloin with gravy made from water!

Let's say you wanted to make pork chops and country gravy. You would saute the chops in a heavy bottomed frying pan. When they are done you remove them and keep them warm, drain the fat out of the pan and add a bit of coffee.  Turn the heat to high and scrape up all the goodness on the bottom of a pan. Pour it over the chops.

To make chicken with mushroom gravy cook the chicken in a heavy bottomed pan. Remove it and keep it warm and add some minced onion and sliced mushrooms and cook quickly. When they are cooked and brown add a bit of dried thyme, a touch of milk or cream and scrape up the bottom of the pan. Pour it over the chicken.

To make a steak with red wine gravy cook the steak in the pan, take it out and keep it warm. Follow the directions for the chicken above but instead of milk or cream add some red wine and reduce. Then at the last minute add a touch of butter, or milk or cream or sour cream and swirl.

You can use all sorts of liquids to make the gravy. You can use apple juice or tomato juice, water, milk, cream, liquors, etc. Just make sure it complements the principal ingredients and use a good tasting liquid. An over the hill or sour wine will make bland or off-putting gravy. You don't have to use Lafite to make gravy but if you use crappy wine you'll get crappy gravy.

Season the gravy with salt and pepper at the last minute.

Mushroom Rice

Difficulty: Easy

Prep time: 1 minute or less

Cooking time: 15 to 35 minutes plus 10 minutes to rest

Cost per serving: $0.50 to $2.00 depending on what dried mushrooms you use

Useful leftovers: Yes. Throw in soup or use to make fried rice.


Dried mushrooms are a great ingredient. So useful for making stocks here it creates a stock as the rice cooks.

It's important to use mushrooms that will be tender enough to eat. Some dried mushrooms can be really tough. To check put a few dried mushrooms in a cup of hot water and wait ten minutes then taste them.

If they are tough then you can use them to make stock but don't add them to the dish. Just heat two cups of water and add the mushrooms, wait ten minutes or until the stock is dark brown then drain and use the water in the recipe instead of using the mushrooms.

2 tablespoons dried mushrooms
2 cups of rice (I like brown basmati but you can use virtually any kind of rice)
Water to cover

Put the dried mushrooms in a pot. Add the rice. Cook according to the directions on the rice. I always use my mom's rule - put enough water in to cover the rice and one thumbnail. I put in two thumbnails for brown rice because it takes longer to cook.

This is a hearty dish and you can garnish it in many ways. You can use walnut or almond or peanut pieces, smoke salmon, pork, bits of chicken, green herbs, etc.

This recipe is not only a great accompaniment it is a great leftover. A tablespoon in a veggie soup packs a lot of flavor. It reheats beautifully. You can use it to stuff vegetables or a chicken. You can saute onions, carrots, parsnips, etc. in the pan before you make this recipe in it. You can add curry, cumin, saffron, etc.

Onions and Fennel

Difficulty: Easy

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 7 - 10  minutes

Cost per serving: $0.75 to $1.00

Useful leftovers: Yes. This is great thrown into a soup or used in a pasta sauce

I served a nice dinner to a friend yesterday and this was the dish he really liked. It's easy and fast and very tasty.

This recipe involves dry-frying, my technique of cooking vegetables in a hot pan with no oil or liquids.

1 Onion
1 large bulb of Fennel
A bit of olive oil or butter
Salt and Pepper

Peel, remove the stem and chop the onion into slices or chunks at least 1/4" thick. If they are too thin they will burn rather than grill.

Peel if necessary, remove the core and chop of slice the same size as the onion.

Put the vegetables in a cold heavy bottomed frying pan and turn the heat onto medium. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally until the onions are completely cooked and browned a little. Season with salt and pepper, a bit of olive oil or butter and swirl the pan around. Serve.

This dish can stay hot in the pan for a few minutes.

You can make this with parsnips, celery, very small dice of carrots, zucchini, etc.

You can serve this with Super Sauce, walnut pieces, bits of smoked ham, sliced green leafy herbs like basil or parsley, or rosemary or cumin.

Cucumber and Carrot Salad

Difficulty: Very easy

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: None

Cost per serving: $0.25 to $1.00

Useful leftovers: Useful but not great. The salad is best fresh.

So easy! So healthy! So tasty!
1 cucumber
1 carrot
1 tablespoon of walnut pieces
Toasted sesame oil
Lemon juice or vinegar
Salt and pepper

Wash the cucumber and slice it thinly or cut into chunks.

Scrub the carrot and cut it into small pieces. I like to do this by cutting a thin slice lengthwise so it will sit flat, then cutting it into wedges, then cutting those into sticks. Use a sharp, heavy knife for best control.

Put the cucumber and carrot in a mixing bowl and season with the sesame oil, lemon juice or vinegar and salt and pepper. Sprinkle the walnuts on top and serve.

To make this really special, toast the walnuts for a few minutes in a dry saute pan over medium heat or in a 350° oven for a few minutes, then let them cool and add them to the salad.