An Unlikely Debutante: Red-Eye Gravy Makes Its Fine-Dining Debut

While coffee is the morning beverage of choice across the country and ham holds a hallowed place on breakfast plates, to most people, they’re to be enjoyed individually. Not so in the South. Breakfast tables from Louisiana to North Carolina are graced with a concoction of equal parts country ham drippings and black coffee, just waiting to be soaked up by biscuits, grits, and cornbread.  And at Ruka’s Table in Highlands, North Carolina, Chef Justin Burdett has transformed this homey staple into a modern Southern belle, taking advantage of a simple, thrifty technique to deliver big flavor in a refined package.

Buttermilk Fried Pork Cheeks, Hog Brain Ravioli, Red Eye Gravy Consommé, and Gremolata

Buttermilk Fried Pork Cheeks, Hog Brain Ravioli, Red Eye Gravy Consommé, and Gremolata

Chef Justin Burdett of Ruka’s Table – Highlands, NC

“Red-eye gravy is kind of indigenous to the South,” Burdett says, “something most Southerners grew up with.” He conjectures that the original sauce came about when parsimonious homesteaders of old sought to put pan drippings and leftover coffee to good use, and became enthralled by the satisfying balance of coffee’s bitter astringency and the ham’s meaty, salty richness. The bare-bones technique consists of rendering ham or bacon (aka cooking breakfast), then deglazing the grease and drippings with leftover black coffee for a salty-smoky-earthy sauce that packs a wallop. Some regions thicken the mixture with flour, some add in condiments like mustard, and some insist upon chicory coffee—but they’re all in agreement that it’s a great way to start the day.

At Ruka’s Table Burdett's version is a delicate, complex consommé, which he deftly pairs with lightly smoked hog brain ravioli and buttermilk-fried sheepshead fish cheeks.  “A lot of what I try to do is refining old Southern dishes into something a little more modern and clean, a little less Grandma,” he says. In this case, that means subjecting lowbrow red-eye gravy to some snooty French clarification techniques. “If you clarify it, you pull a lot of the heaviness out of it, but you leave all of that flavor that is so familiar to people who have grown up with it.”

Spurred by similar motives to the hog farmers of Appalachia, Burdett developed this recipe to make use of the smoky, salty bone of a 21 month-aged Kentucky country ham he had on hand after carving all the meat from it. “A huge part of my cooking style is utilizing everything. Farm-to-table is such a cliché, but I feel like the South has been doing it forever—out of necessity, not because it was a cool thing to do.” Putting to good use a batch of pork stock left from cooking a pig’s head, Burdett added the ham bone to infuse the smoky flavor, poured in a generous dose of strong-brewed coffee, and clarified it all with an egg white raft. “We ended up with something that looked just like coffee, but tasted exactly like an old-school red-eye gravy.”

When the question arose of what to pair this concoction with, once again, Burdett was inspired by the traditions of the region. “My father-in-law grew up right around this area. When he was a kid, when they killed hogs he would take the brain out, and his mom would scramble it with eggs; a really classic Appalachian breakfast. We had a pig head on hand for a last course, so I just popped the skull and cooked the brain.” Earthy rye flour pasta from Anson Mills complements the smokiness of the broth and acts as a vessel for the brains; while tangy, spicy fish cheeks and pickled sheepshead gremolata bring acidity to balance the overall richness.

“This dish sounds like it would be a gut bomb, but we’ve refined it down to something really delicate,” says Burdett. “That coffee-smoky-hammy flavor—it’s something I grew up with.”

Technique:

• Roast ham bone briefly, at a low temperature, just to render some of the fat to impart the flavor into the stock. The more you cook country ham the saltier and more bitter it gets.
• Don’t simmer the bone in the stock for too long or it will release too much salt.
• Use a bold coffee, as it’s going to have to stand up to the rich flavors of country ham and pork stock.
• Brew coffee in a French press, using extra grounds to acheive a more concentrated flavor.
• Clarify with an egg white raft to remove all solids and impurities.

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