What's For Breakfast?
Biscuits and red-eye gravy, but make it vegetarian
It's the final week of "coffee month" here at Second Breakfast, with recipes for coffee cake, coffee muffins, and coffee pancakes (tiramisu protein pancakes, to be exact). Next month, we're moving on to granola, which has a fascinating history all wrapped up in wellness and whiteness.
I knew that, during "coffee month," I wanted to give you a recipe for red-eye gravy.
Red-eye gravy's name comes from its distinct appearance. Prepared traditionally, with coffee and grease combined in the final step (see Preparation below), a heterogeneous mixture forms with the water-based coffee sinking to the bottom and the oil-based grease forming the top layer. In a round bowl the mixture looks much like a red human eye. Use of red pepper enhances the redness of the appearance.
Less traditional preparation techniques do not always result in the "red eye" appearance, leading to folk legends surrounding the origin of the name. For instance, one story is that former United States President Andrew Jackson requested ham with gravy as red as his cook's eyes, which were bloodshot from drinking the night before, or that the black coffee in the gravy will keep people awake.
But a few problems, the most obvious being getting my hands on the key ingredient — a country ham — which is far less prevalent in the grocery store than city ham. Plus, with recipe development, I want to make an item a couple of times first to make sure it actually "works." And while I'm more than happy to eat biscuits and gravy quite regularly — and not just for breakfast — it is a bit trickier to consume something with coffee in it after 2pm or so if I plan to, you know, sleep.
