chipped beef gravy

My husband is requesting biscuits and chipped beef gravy for his birthday dinner. I have never made biscuits and gravy before. I'm pretty confident on the biscuits but I haven't found a recipe for chipped beef gravy. I was thinking of following wssmom's buttermilk biscuits with sausage gravy recipe https://food52.com/recipes..., but I'm not sure if I can just substitute chipped beef for the sausage. And how much?

ktr
  • Posted by: ktr
  • January 12, 2016
  • 5215 views
  • 11 Comments

11 Comments

Sam1148
Sam1148 January 13, 2016
You don't mess with childhood favorites until you follow the box specs a couple of time. Then you tweek it.
The box specs of chipped beef gravy on biscuits. Calls for hormels or armor's dried beef in the glass jar.
http://www.armour-star.com/images/products/prod_dried_beef_2.25oz.jpg
Chop that up and make a basic white gravy. NO SALT because the stuff is a salt lick as it is.
Ground pepper is important...And not the pepper from a pepper grinder...the cheap stuff in the shaker.
 
702551
702551 January 14, 2016
Sam1148 is right, go with the legacy recipe(s) for childhood favorites initially.

That means using something like the recipe from Fannie Farmer or another old-school cookbook (my guess is that Joy of Cooking has this recipe) or follow the recipe on the package. Unsurprisingly, Armour Star has a recipe for creamed chipped beef on their website:

http://www.armour-star.com/search.asp?topten=true&recipe_id=221

The aforementioned Fannie Farmer recipe and the one from Armour Star are similar, but not identical. I'm sure both have been served countless times on American dining room tables over the past century.

You must figure out which version (could be one of these two, could be something else) is the one your husband remembers.

Good luck.
 
702551
702551 January 12, 2016
How can you not find any chipped beef gravy recipes?

The top hit for a Google search of "chipped beef gravy" is a recipe at Serious Eats.

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/02/chipped-beef-gravy-on-toast-stew-on-a-shingle-recipe.html
 
702551
702551 January 12, 2016
The dish is also known as "creamed dried beef." There is a recipe in the Fannie Farmer Cookbook.

Here is the 1918 version of that recipe:

http://www.bartleby.com/87/r0523.html
 
Maedl
Maedl January 12, 2016
Creamed chipped beef was frequently on the table on Saturday night while I was growing up. My mother made a cream sauce and then added the chipped beef.

I think the chipped beef is sold in plastic packages in large grocery stores. A friend from Pennsylvania bought some down to me last year and said he bought it at a butcher, so, yes, it is still being made.
 
scruz
scruz January 12, 2016
do they still make that type of meat product?
 
ktr
ktr January 12, 2016
I'm going to find out!
 
Susan W.
Susan W. January 12, 2016
They do. I even vaguely remember seeing it on my store's shelf while grabbing some liquid smoke.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GNDMRN6?keywords=dried%20beef&qid=1452653280&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1
 
Susan W.
Susan W. January 12, 2016
My Dad used to make it when my mom didn't want to cook. He called it SOS (does not stand for Save Our Ship, but can't say it here) and served it over toast or English muffin. Here's a good looking rendition. I'd go heavier on the pepper a or add a little cayenne, but that's because my Dad did.

http://www.themeaningofpie.com/2011/08/chipped-beef-on-toast-s-o-s/
 
ktr
ktr January 12, 2016
Haha! I thought of the name SOS when he said the gravy should be made with chipped beef and not sausage. I grew up eating a very basic version of it (i.e. no spices at all, just butter, flour milk and chipped beef). It definitely fed my salt cravings tho!
 
ktr
ktr January 12, 2016
I meant to add that the recipe looks perfect. He approved of the gravy in the picture. Thanks! I don't know exactly what I imagined when he said gravy but I thought it would be much more complicated than this looks, so hopefully it will be a good first gravy making experience for me!
 
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