Country (Cream) Gravy
A white pan gravy made from the drippings of fried chicken, steak, or chops, with flour and milk or cream, seasoned hard with black pepper. No sausage: the fried meat's own fond flavors it.
Texas
Texas plates its gravy big: cream gravy over chicken-fried steak and chili gravy over enchiladas. Tex-Mex and ranch cooking meet on the same table here.
Chili Gravy (Tex-Mex)
The defining sauce of Tex-Mex enchiladas: a smooth, brick-red gravy of stock, chili powder, and cumin, roux-thickened. Chili scholar Robb Walsh called it the mother sauce of Tex-Mex.
Pepper Gravy
A cream gravy seasoned assertively with cracked black pepper, the Texas steakhouse form served over chicken-fried steak. Smooth, pale, and pepper-hot without chiles.
Texas Toast
White bread cut twice as thick as standard, about an inch, griddled in butter. The Texas steakhouse and diner base for pepper gravy and chicken-fried plates.
Chicken-Fried Steak with Cream Gravy
A tenderized round steak, battered and fried like chicken, drowned in country cream or pepper gravy. The Texas plate that defines cream gravy's purpose.
Chicken-Fried Chicken
A pounded chicken breast, battered and fried like chicken-fried steak, under cream or pepper gravy. The Texas method applied to poultry.