From juliet.kemp@nuffield.oxford.ac.uk Thu Sep 20 13:36:26 2001 Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 22:57:24 GMT From: Juliet Kemp Newsgroups: rec.food.veg.cooking Subject: Veg gravy My partner last night produced the most gorgeous vegetarian gravy - best gravy I've had since I went vegetarian - so I thought I'd post the recipe. Warning: quantities are approximate, since he pretty much made it up as he went along :-) 1 onion 1 whole clove garlic 1 heaped tablespoon brown sugar Soy sauce 1/2 pint wine 1 pint vegetable stock Margarine (or butter if you're lacto-ovo) Flour Chop the onion very very fine, and sweat in the margarine on a low heat until it goes squidgy. Be careful not to burn it. Sprinkle the brown sugar over it, and continue to cook for about another 10 min. Stir in maybe a tablespoon of flour (sorry, he was very vague about this - it's for thickening, anyway, so it depends how thick you like your gravy), leave for a minute or so. Add the wine, stock, garlic clove, and soy sauce (to taste). Simmer for basically as long as you like - the longer you leave it, the thicker & nicer tasting it'll get. If it gets too thick, add more water; if it's too thin, mix a little flour with water to a paste, & add it. When ready to serve, fish out the garlic clove, & if you're feeling extravagant, you could sieve it to get rid of the onion bits (we didn't bother - I rather liked the onion bits). The half pint of wine might be a little excessive - we had it left over from our housewarming at the weekend. You can always replace some/all of it with stock, maybe with a little vinegar as well if you don't want to use any wine. Juliet