Abstract: An automatic stirring apparatus for stirring food simmering on a stove, such as gravy in a cooking vessel with a peripheral upper edge including a vertical rotating drive shaft driven through gears by an electric motor in a housing supported on the upper edge of the vessel with a stirring device on a lower end of the shaft that includes lengths of chain connected elements extending horizontally in opposite directions from the shaft, the elements allowing full upward vertical rotational movement of each element of the chain while preventing all horizontal movement of each element allowing a lower surface of the chain to conform to any cooking surface in the vessel.