Onion Gravy for Faggots

Faggot gravy is not the same as a roast gravy and it should not be. It is looser, darker and more savoury, because the faggots finish cooking in it and give up their own fat and juices as they go. Chop the onions rather than slicing them so they disappear into the sauce, and keep it thin enough to spoon over mash and peas.

Ingredients

Makes about 600ml, enough to bake 8 faggots in

• 2 large (about 350g / 12oz) brown onions chopped small, about 5mm dice
• 2 tbsp beef dripping
• 1½ tbsp (25g) plain flour
• 800ml (1½ pints) hot beef stock
• 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp tomato purée
• ½ tsp gravy browning optional, for the traditional colour
• salt and black pepper

Kit

• Frying pan
• Ovenproof dish
• Wooden spoon

Method

1. Heat the oven to 180C fan (200C conventional, gas 6). Melt the dripping in a frying pan over a medium heat and add the chopped onions with a pinch of salt.

2. Cook for 25 to 30 minutes, stirring often, until dark brown and almost jammy. Chopped onions brown faster than sliced ones because there is more cut surface, so keep an eye on them from the twenty minute mark.

3. Stir in the tomato purée and cook for 1 minute until it darkens, then add the flour and cook for another 2 minutes. Only a tablespoon and a half goes in for 800ml of stock, and that is deliberate. This gravy is meant to be thin.

4. Add the hot stock a third at a time, stirring rather than whisking so the onions stay in pieces, then add the Worcestershire sauce and the gravy browning if you are using it.

5. Simmer for 10 minutes. It should look like a thin, dark, oniony sauce that runs off a spoon rather than clinging to it. Season carefully, remembering that the faggots will add their own salt.

6. Pour the gravy into an ovenproof dish, sit the faggots in it so they are two thirds submerged, and bake uncovered for 30 minutes, spooning the gravy over them twice.

7. By the end the faggots will have browned on top and released their fat into the gravy, which will have thickened slightly and gone considerably darker. That is the finished article.

Tips worth knowing

• Chopping rather than slicing is the point. In a Black Country gravy the onion should melt away rather than sit in strands.
• Do not thicken it more before it goes in the oven. It reduces around the faggots and thickens itself by the time it comes out.
• Gravy browning is not cheating in this recipe. It is what gives that specific dark, almost black look that shop and butcher versions have.
• If you are using shop bought faggots in their own sauce, discard that sauce and use this instead. It is not close.

Keeping and reheating

Fridge for 3 days with the faggots in it, and it genuinely improves overnight. Reheat covered in the oven at 160C fan for 25 minutes. The gravy alone freezes for 3 months.

Questions people ask