Interesting twist

Can I just say that cream gravy made with roux that was made using coconut oil has a very nice, unusual, subtle flavor?

We had chicken-fried steak tonight with cream gravy, and I decided to try a little experiment. I like cooking with coconut oil because its smoke point is 350 degrees, which means it doesn't get all burnt and nasty before doing the nice toasty thing with the roux.

It didn't taste sweet or coconutty or anything. It wasn't that obvious. But it did have a certain je ne sais quois that set it apart from, say, cream gravy made with bacon drippings. Definitely something to be repeated.

The reason I didn't use the drippings from the chicken-fried steak was that I didn't have any. One of the foods in the AngelFood package donated to our family was a package of pre-breaded chicken-fried steaks. I toasted them up in the toaster oven (we don't have a real oven yet because of the continuing electrical issues in our kitchen -- don't ask) and made cream gravy from roux that I toasted using oil. And I decided to try doing it with coconut oil instead of vegetable oil.

I don't know how I figured out how to make roux, but after watching my grandma and my mom make it, it just made sense to me how the physics of it worked. My dad's mom is the queen of cream gravy, and that's one skill I have today that I can directly attribute to watching her do it.

That, and enjoying the finer beauties of the skin from roasted turkey.

Don't judge. That stuff is pure heaven, I'm not gonna lie. Last Thanksgiving I was in the kitchen about to take a hunk of the lovely tasty skin and she nearly took my hand off at the wrist. I offered to arm-wrestle her, but I knew I was outgunned.