In the grocery store … near the baking aisle … are shelves filled with sauce packets. In essence, they are dry ingredients that when mixed with ordinary tap water and stirred until incorporated will leap-frog a roux and land you a sauce.
My parents — who were not chefs but never burned or broke the flour and butter base that will become a rich and flavorful gravy — I am sure, would have given me a heaping measure of side-eye, not to mention curled-lip for tossing two packets of the stuff into my cart.
It goes against the grain.
Of all the things one should know, I can conjure my mother saying mid-lecture, is the simple act of making the thickening agent for a gravy from scratch. She (and my father, thanks to her practiced instruction) could do it in their sleep.
First they’d melt an amount of butter in a saucepan before adding an equal amount of flour, then whisking until the color they desired majestically appeared. Depending on what the savory sauce would be ladled over my mother could match white, beige or caramel brown as if she were cooking in a Pantone chart. They’d add a liquid … water, milk or broth and whisk constantly to prevent lumps. The heat would be medium or low, and they wouldn’t take their eyes off the task until the finished product was velvety and the exact consistency they intended.
I always thought there was something miraculous in that marinade. Divine intervention, however, it wasn’t. As I recall, my mother, a nurse by training, was ready and able to doctor the sauce if any accident, such as a burner’s heat being set too high, happened to occur. She could diagnose the problem and its treatment – adding water here or a sprinkle of thickener there – by intuition.
Similarly, my father, her sous chef, could make the toughest piece of leftover meat melt in our mouths just by how he angled his knife. Unlike me, he could tell in the dimmest light, which way the grain was heading. No hesitation.
There was an economy to the procedure just as much as there was an economy to the product they plated up and set out on the kitchen table.
Those meals came vividly to life as I watched an episode of the FX show "The Bear" where chef Sydney Adamu doctors up a box of Hamburger Helper. As the episode progresses, we watch “Syd” balance the inexperience in other areas of her life with her surety and skills she possesses in the kitchen. As she connects with her young cousin and talks through the angst of living, I watch a recipe that brings nourishment of the soul and convenience come together in real time. A box of pasta. A packet of spices. A cup of water. A squeeze of tomato paste. A smattering of toasted panko. A fresh nest of shredded cheddar cheese sprinkled over the top.
When Syd ladles two servings of her doctored Hamburger Helper into bowls and hands one to her young charge, I can almost feel the steam of that familiar comfort on my face.
Something about that scene reminded me of one of my favorite meals my mom used to make: fried rice using a box of Rice-a-Roni, leftover chicken or pork, and a scrambled egg.
With just a dash of soy sauce, it was nourishment for the soul.
