Perfect Gravy: What's The Secret? - Thanksgiving - Cooking - Recipe.com

By joeyanne

Details

Servings 1
Adapted from recipe.com

Preparation

Step 1

make a concoction called “beurre manié”

(pronounced “burr man-YAY”). Don’t be scared that it’s French; it’s pretty easy. Leave butter out on the counter until it’s in “the pomade state” (basically a warm gel), and knead it with your hands to combine with an equal amount (by weight) of all-purpose flour. Roll it into marble-sized balls, and put those in a Ziploc bag in the fridge or freezer; it’ll keep as long as butter. Have this on hand to add to any simmering liquid — it’s your new secret weapon.

! However, if you don’t have anyone to hide out in the kitchen with you, drinking white wine and kibbitzing, just make the onions as limp as you can manage, then deglaze the pan with some of that wine you’re drinking alone, scraping out the hard bits (future lumps).

Strain it into a saucepan and add some low-sodium chicken stock.

Add hard herbs (thyme, sage, rosemary) and let that simmer for however long you like.

Strain that and add it to the gravy pot that has the onion-chicken-stock juice. “Your gravy needs the real roasted flavor from those drippings,” says Sharp. “They fortify the gravy, but that won’t make enough for everyone, and it’s really too much fat.” Combining those drippings with the already-simmering onion-infused stock will make for the right balance of hearty, salty, meaty flavor and smooth, soothing liquid.

• Once that’s simmering, take stock (har, har).

Is it too thin? Add some pomade marbles!

Let that simmer for a bit, so it can thicken and reduce.

“The mistakes even professional chefs make is letting it get too salty or too thin.”

? That’s right. One strain will not do the trick — it’ll take too long, it won’t make enough, you’ll be desperately trying to smush gravy through the strainer as your dad’s starting to say grace. Strain it every time you move it, every time you have a moment, several times during the process, as you go along. It’s like plastic surgery: loads of little nip-and-tucks yield a more desirable result than one full-on facelift.

. Add your delicate herbs (e.g., tarragon, chives, parsley). And bring it to the table.

– Make beurre manie rather than a roux

How to Make Home-style Turkey Gravy

I just do a large dice of my vegetables, celery plus the leafs, and onions which get roasted around the turkey with a little liquid consisting of some chicken broth diluted with water. After the turkey is done, and resting, I transfer everything from the roasting pan (making sure there are no bones or inedible items in the pan) to a dutch oven and deglaze the roasting pan with a little white wine and butter. Then pour the contents of the roasting pan into the dutch oven and blend the whole pot with a “stick blender” until reasonably smooth. Bring the contents of the dutch oven to a simmer and reduce to a “gravy” consistency. Adjust if necessary by adding extra water if too thick, and if too thin, add “Thick-It” (a modified starch product that thickens without changing the taste or look of the food). As soon as I get the consistency I want, I strain the gravy into the gravy boats and serve! Perfect lump-less gravy every time. I never minded lumps in my gravy, but my mother-in-law thought that any gravy that had lumps in it wasn’t a proper gravy.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked

Make the Takeout