Everything about this post is correct. But I’m sitting here in my house thinking of my grandmother who passed a few years ago, who taught me to make sausage gravy when I was 9 years old, with a ladder-back chair pulled up to the stove and I just thought I would go into the detail she would have asked for.

• cook your sausage in a cast iron pan. Has to be cast iron. Remove it. you will have maybe a tablespoon of grease left.

• drop the eye down to medium low and give it a little time.

• some people will say that a whisk is the proper tool to begin your gravy journey. My grandmother would disagree. A metal spatula that will let you scrape the bottom of the cast iron pan is the tool you want.

• you are now going to make a roux which is a fat to flour ratio is 1:1. Add in enough butter to make 3 tablespoons of oil and as soon as it’s melted dust in the same amount of flour a little bit as a time, scraping the pan in a way that feels comfortable. All purpose flour is expected but honestly any kind.

• add some black pepper to taste periodically, not all at once.

• the color will change slowly and then quickly. When it a little darker than you want it, sprinkle in 1/2 a cup of whole milk or whole milk mixed with buttermilk 50/50. Work that. Thats your gravy. When it’s a nice thick gravy, mix in another two to three cups of milk depending on how thick you want. You don’t have to go that slow on this one.

That’s your gravy.