U. S. Navy Minced Beef Gravy on Toast

Submitted by Mercy

"I am not too sure on the Navy part as I found this on another site and I have no Navy experience, but it is said that that this is served over toast at breakfast and it is also great on hot dogs."

 

• Ready In: 30mins
• Ingredients: 10
• Serves: 10

ingredients

• 1 1⁄2 lbs ground beef
• 2 medium onions, chopped
• cooking oil, if needed
• salt and pepper
• 5 tablespoons flour, approximate
• 1 (16 ounce) can whole tomatoes, diced
• 5 1⁄2 ounces tomato juice
• 2 cups hot water, approximate
• 1⁄2 teaspoon ground nutmeg, to taste
• 1⁄2 teaspoon sugar, to taste

directions

1. Crumble the ground beef into a skillet and brown with the onions.
2. If beef is very lean, add a tablespoon or two of cooking oil.
3. Salt and pepper to taste.
4. Add flour, one tablespoon at a time, stirring and cooking each spoonful, before adding the next.
5. The flour must be cooked to preclude a starchy taste through out.
6. Add enough flour to absorb most of the oil.
7. Stir in the tomatoes and the tomato juice, followed by the water.
8. Allow to simmer on low heat to thicken.
9. Adjust consistency as necessary.
10. Add nutmeg and sugar and adjust to taste.

Reviews

[don417 ..]

Sorry, this is not the legit recipe. As a Navy Cook I can tell you there are no sugar, WATER or tomato juice involved in this recipe. And Mace is the spice. Nutmeg is only optional. Why would you water down a tomato based sauce?

 

[Kana K.]

I don't recall S.O.S. having any vegetable or vegetable juice in it. It's pretty much dried beef, milk, fat, pepper, flour and bread. I included a pic from the 1944 Cook Book of the United States Navy

 

[tgear]

I can't wait to try this! I'm a Navy brat and ate this ALL the time as a kid. My dad always made it based off of what the cooks on his ship told him and never wrote down the recipe. Sometime after he passed away I started trying to find a recipe for his famous S.O.S. This looks really close except he never used sugar or nutmeg in his from what I remember.

 

[David M.]

I ate this while in the Marine Corps Jan. 69, through Sept. 70, and looked forward to having it each morning while in a camp. I recently asked my wife to prepare it. She bought chipped beef in a jar and made a gravy for it. No where close to the real thing.

 

[DorisMa]

The Original USN recipe did not use Tomato Juice. I must have been lucky, because we had Chipped Beef up to the time I retired in 1987. We used to make this regularly until eating gluten became a problem. I had some Gluten Free Batter/Coating Mix I ordered from Two Rivers Bakery that I used instead of flour, and it was better then I remembered. Going back on the Breakfast Menu served over potatoes