Sequestration Meal #373

 

I'd never had bangers and mash (I suspect most Americans haven't), but I was in the mood for gravy--despite decidedly not being in the mood for classic Thanksgiving food--so I decided to grab comfort food from another culture. I found a recipe for onion gravy at Cupful of Kale that sounded worth a shot, so I mostly followed it. I had no red wine, so I skipped that, and I used all-purpose flour rather than corn flour because I didn't have any (it isn't a common ingredient here). (If I hadn't done that, this meal would be totally gluten free.) I also used dried thyme rather than fresh, and tomato paste rather than puree. Okay, maybe I only sort of followed it. But it didn't matter, because it turned out so well.

My stock was made from Better than Bouillon's No Beef concentrate, and that, plus the Marmite, made this a delightfully rich gravy. I think it was a bit thinner than I would usually like but it didn't matter because it tasted so good. Caramelized onions are generally promising, of course, but there are plenty of bland gravies in the world. Layering all these flavors in made a really good sauce. (Is gravy a sauce? To me it seems so, anyway. What do you say?)

The star of this show really is the gravy, but otherwise I had mashed potatoes, a few Beyond Meat classic breakfast sausage links (you can always break free of breakfast with sausage links, and they were perfect here), a steamed carrot, and some buttery brussels sprouts.

This was a perfect at-home lunch for a non-work day. This gravy recipe is a definite keeper. I already want to put it over a biscuit or some rice and a burger patty. It was a bit time consuming to make, but totally worth it. So here's to all the mood-elevating powers of gravy.