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.

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.

Dry Fried Asparagus

Difficulty: Very Easy

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 4 minutes

Cost per serving: $0.25 to $0.40

Useful leftovers: Yes

Dry frying is my technique of cooking vegetables in a dry hot pan until done then dressed lightly with oil or butter and seasonings.

It is really easy and fast and the veggies taste fantastic.

You need a heavy bottomed pan. You can't make this in a thin bottomed pan. Maybe you can, but I can't.

This recipe works really well with asparagus, green beans, squash, carrots, onions, celery, etc.

Asparagus, washed carefully and dried, tough stalks removed and cut into 1/2" pieces
A tiny bit of butter
Salt and pepper

Heat a cast iron pan until it is fairly hot. You don't want it extremely hot but if you drop a drop of water on it it should sizzle and the water should evaporate quickly.

Put the chopped veggies in one layer in the pan. It's ok if they don't all quite fit but if you have two complete layers the veggies will get soggy.

Shake the pan every couple of minutes while they cook. Let the veggies cook until they are slightly brown and just barely done. Toss in the bit of butter and swirl the pan just until the butter is melted and pour out into a serving dish. Season with salt and pepper and stir gently.

Truffled Mushroom Sauce

I don't make a lot of sauces. I can make several dozen but we eat pretty cleanly here.

But on special occasions this kicks butt. Don't believe the snobby wisdom that canned or jarred truffles aren't worth eating. They are not the same as fresh truffles but for a sauce like this they are fantastic. I buy mine from Pistol River Mushrooms. Right now a small jar of truffle peelings (perfectly good for this) are less than $7 and whole truffles are less than $8.


1 half of a black truffle or the same amount of chopped truffles
1 onion, diced very finely
1 teaspoon tomato paste
1 clove of garlic, chopped
2 oz dried mushrooms, any kind
1/2 lb fresh mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
1 tablespoon Madeira or Marsala
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon butter

If you make the steaks in a frying pan you can take them out and make this sauce in the pan while the meat is resting.

Soak the dried mushrooms in a cup of hot water for at least 15 minutes. I start them before I cook the steaks.

Saute the onion and fresh mushrooms in the butter until the onions are just translucent and not browned. Add the truffle, tomato paste and the garlic and cook, stirring constantly for a minute.

Add the liquid from the dried mushrooms and if they are tender enough, chop and add them. Off the heat add the Madeira or Marsala then cook for another minute (being careful as it might flame up).

Add the cream and reduce everything over high heat for a minute until it thickens. Add salt and pepper to taste.  Serve in a sauceboat and it won't be long until the groans of pleasure begin!