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FRIED SAUSAGE WITH MILK GRAVY

http://teriskitchen.com/padutch/sausage-1.html

SERVES 4

Fried sausage with Milk Gravy is great comfort food recipe and absolutely delicious. Of course, you could make fried sausage by itself, but the Pennsylvania Dutch make milk gravy quite often, even without meat, using just bacon grease for flavoring. My grandparents and my mother used to put some in a bowl, add chunks of bread and eat it. Not very appetizing to me, but they loved it. In this recipe, the gravy can be used on potatoes, macaroni and cheese, buckwheat cakes, potato pancakes...or just 'sopped' up with a piece of bread.

INGREDIENTS

1 pound fresh link sausage

All-purpose flour, about 2 tablespoons

Milk, about 1 cup

Salt and pepper to taste

Cut sausage into desired pieces. Place in frying pan and add a little water. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce, cover, and simmer until sausage is done. Remove lid and continue to cook over medium-high heat until water evaporates and sausage browns on all sides. Remove sausage from pan. Add flour to pan drippings. Stir as if making a roux, until flour is slightly browned. Gradually add milk, stirring vigorously to prevent lumps and scraping up all of the browned bits in bottom of pan. (The amount of milk added depends on the desired thickness. Start with one cup and add more as it thickens.) Add salt and pepper, place in a gravy boat and serve along side the sausage.

Notes: For a lighter gravy, just add less flour. Sometimes I omit the flour and just let the milk reduce. It forms some curdles which act as a natural thickener. Fresh sausage comes in a variety of forms depending on the region of the country. The typical sausage used in this recipe is somewhat mild, often called 'country' sausage. However, I know from experience that country sausage in Pennsylvania has different spices than sausage found in the south. Therefore, just get whatever fresh sausage is your favorite.