You guys should get a kick out of this. My GRANDMOTHER used this technique (well, sort of). When I saw "Japanese Milk Bread," it didn't ring any bells, but when you posted the picture with the typed index cards, a little chime dinged, and I had to go dig out Gram's recipe box (as the eldest daughter of the eldest daughter, etc., I got possession of the "Ark of the Covenant," as it's known in our family). Sure enough, every one of her recipes for dinner rolls, cinnamon rolls, and sandwich bread called for "one-half cup thick milk gravy," and "one cup potato water." Okay, so now I'm intrigued. I call Mom (the non-baker), and she tells me that whenever Gram made a cream sauce for anything, she didn't make a roux, she made a slurry, and before she added extra milk to thin (and cheese, or sausage, or whatever) she would hold back a ladle of thick to put in the "ice box" for bread. Mom assumed I knew this. Well, I sure didn't, and Gram and I talked cooking all the time. All I know is that whenever people raved over her baked goods, she would just say with a twinkle, "Never throw out your potato water." Not one whisper about thick gravy, not even to me, and I named my daughter after her! That's okay; I have three granddaughters now, so in a few years I'll have one more nifty trick to hand down, though I imagine we'll use your method. I mean, nowadays, who has unseasoned flour and milk slurry just sitting in their fridge waiting to be baked?! Gram was one smart cookie.

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