I don't have pics to accompany most of this story, but this weekend we made a roast, and collected the drippings to make a gravy, and yesterday I had a roast chicken and stuffing bread roll with mustard and cranberry sauce. We browned a bunch of onions, added this to the gravy, and used this as a dipping sauce. It was glorious.
Today, we used the leftover onion gravy to do a makeshift onion soup. We added some more chicken to this, and also did dumplings.
It may look bad, especially the plate (I did not want to burn myself bringing it in, so I used the plate I had been keeping utensils on) but I assure you it was divine.
Look forward to doing something again next week.
stews, smothers, roux/gravies and au jus invariably look like a big honking batch of whatever, even though they are the greatest components of our most comforting foods. imo, there is way too much emphasis on striking visual presentation in meals that i think goes back even before the social media craze, to the gastronomie kitchens of aristocrats and other rich-people-stunting-on-each-other bullshit. like, am i eating it or looking at it?
but, if you ever want to make those sorts of things "pop" for honored/beloved guests, if you quickly slice up the tops of a few green/spring onions fairly small (<0.5cm) and sprinkle them on top right after you plate them up, people will think you're a blue ribbon wizard. also the addition of fresh little sharp 'n' crunchy bits are kind of fun too, so it's not all visual.
I don't think it's too wild to "pretty up" sauces/stews. A slurry of cornstarch with a little broth would bind to the fat on top of OP's soup, and make for a slightly thicker and more glossy soup.
You're definitely right that it's not a big deal, though!
I think it looks delicious! I really aspire to plan multiple meals off of one like this, but I don't think I've managed three. Well done!
You can literally just take self-raising flour and keep adding water until you have a bunch of nice, smooth and firm balls, but this particular batch is 1:2 vegetable suet to flour.
