Cream Gravy with Pepper

Cream gravy, also known by some as country gravy, or pepper gravy, is a traditional gravy in the American South, often served over Chicken Fried Steak.* Cream gravy also forms the base for the gravy used in sausage (gravy) and biscuits, which usually has the butter replaced with sausage drippings, and has fried crumbled sausage added. This is another dish of the American South. To be quite honest about it, over the years I've found the basic recipe type of cream gravy in a number of restaurants or diners to be a little too bland for me, so I add some adobo seasoning to the gravy, which gives it a very slight yellow tint, due to some turmeric and paprika in the adobo seasoning; that is, the adobo seasoning I make myself,** but there are commercial adobo seasonings that "may not" have turmeric or paprika in the ingredients. In the U.S., adobo seasoning is easily found in supermarkets in many communities, as it has a strong connection to Puerto Rican cooking, and PUERTO RICANS ARE AMERICAN CITIZENS!    

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons regular olive oil
4 to 5 tablespoons flour
1 to 2 tablespoons ground black pepper, according to how ''peppery" you like it
2 1/2 cups milk
2 teaspoons adobo seasoning**

Heat the butter and oil in a pan over low heat until the butter melts. Stir in the flour to make a roux. Cook for just a minute or two to take away the raw flour taste, but don't let the roux darken. To prevent darkening, remove the pan from the heat for a few moments, if need be. Add about a half cup of the milk, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens. You can turn up the heat a little now (I set it on medium). Gradually add more milk, always stirring, and always allowing the mixture to come up to a simmer until it thickens. When the milk has all been added and the gravy is thickened, reduce the heat again to low or even very low. Add the pepper and the adobo seasoning, and stir to mix the seasonings in well. Let cook for another minute or so over low heat, always stirring to prevent any sticking.

* This is the link to "Chicken Fried Steak," but I made brown mushroom and onion gravy. This recipe for the meat is the same regardless of the gravy used: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2018/10/chicken-fried-steak-with-brown-mushroom.html

** For the recipe for adobo seasoning:  https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2017/11/adobo-seasoning.html

Back in the 1970s I would fairly often go to this one restaurant that had a listing on their menu for "vegetarian platter." Customers could order four side dishes for a set price that was somewhat less than these dishes would have cost at their regular individual prices combined. I decided to go that route for this picture, although I'm not a vegetarian. This is mashed potatoes with pepper gravy (not meat gravy), peas, sliced tomatoes and cottage cheese.  

With fried boneless breaded chicken breast....

WORD HISTORY:
Boil-English has more than one word of this spelling, but this is the verb, and the derived noun ("state of boiling"). It is distantly related, through Indo European, to "ball" (rounded object), a word from the Germanic roots of English. It goes back to Indo European "bhel," which had the notion of "swell, bloat out, to bulge," which gave Latin "bulla,"^ meaning, "knob, bubble" (that is, "air filled swellings") and this produced Latin "bullire," a verb meaning, "to bubble." This passed into Latin-based Old French as "bollir" ("to bubble, to ferment, to boil"), the Anglo-Norman form of which, "boiller," was borrowed by English in the 1200s (at first as, "boillen?"). This word gradually replaced the native English word "seethe," as the main word for "heat liquid to bubbling."^^ The noun form for "state of boiling," was derived from the noun in the 1400s.  

^ Latin "bulla" is thought by some to have been borrowed from Gaulish, a Celtic language, which is also Indo European. Gaulish was absorbed by Latin in ancient times in the area of what is today largely France and southern Belgium.

^^ Of course "seethe" is still around and meaning "liquid at a full boil," although it is used more in its figurative sense, "be very angry, 'boiling' mad."