Sawmill Gravy

Suzan McAllister

1 l b. breakfast sausage (Jimmy Deans and Bob Evans are both good - I also like just buying the bulk brand from the store if it's freshly packaged, but it will need more pepper)
4 1/2 tbsp flour
2 c. half and half
salt and pepper

Brown the sausage really well.  This is best accomplished by using med-low heat to begin.
While the sausage is partially cooking, keep at it with the spatula to make sure you have pan spaces between at least some of the chunks.  If you let it just cook into a big sausage pancake, you'll be steaming it, not frying it, and you won't get the same flavor for the sauce.
Add salt and pepper, I usually go light on the salt and very heavy on the pepper.  Half and half tones down what your putting in quite a bit.
Once it's cooked, turn the pan up to med or med high and get some carmelization on the meat.

Turn the pan down to low and sprinkle the flour over the top, then work it in, trying to clean all the carmelization off the bottom of the pan.  It probably won't all come off at this stage, but do what you can.

Add the half and half and bring the pan back up to med low.  What you're trying to accomplish at this point is to heat the half and half to just below boiling, enough to let the flour thicken it without boiling it and risking scalding or curdling (curdling is not likely because of all the fat you've added from the meat)

Keep it on med low to low, stirring constantly, until it gets to the thickness you want.  Serve.

Should cover 8 biscuits.

NOTES:
Paula Deen says to use 3 TBsp of flour, Alton Brown says 1/4 cup, which is double what Paula uses.
Dad likes his gravy thick, but I've done the Alton Brown recipe and it's a little thick for me, so I split the difference.  I made it like this today and it was perfect.  Used Jimmy Dean original, tastes great.
Also, milk is just as good as half and half.  If you use low fat milk, you're going to want to go generous (more like the Alton recipe) with the flour.