Honesty Please! Does everyone make their gravy from scratch and are there any easy (cheating) shortcuts?

[Rainbunny]

I love to cook, and a roast dinner is definitely one of my favorite dishes. I have an awful confession though, for some reason I have never actually made gravy from scratch and I want to do it properly for this weekend's roast. Do I really need one of those fat separator things? I'm hoping that this will be something that looks hard but is actually easy to make.

Aunt Bessie's is my best friend.

Carrot and turnip water makes the best gravy, it might be slightly sweet for some people but I luff it. I once shrieked like a banshee when my ex threw the water away, my mum thought I'd lost my marbles

Add veg water and wine and bisto granules to the empty roasting pan, and stir till its thickened and ready. Taste it. It might need some french mustard or soy sauce, garlic salt or black pepper etc.

If the roasting tin had too much fat in it, tip it out before you make your gravy.

My tip: don't put the cornflour directly into the gravy/meat dripping juices: make a paste with it first in a small side bowl or cup, gradually adding a couple spoonfuls of liquid to it and stirring it in, then add that to the gravy. No clumping or floury taste.

I do make my gravy from scratch but I rarely bother to use flour as it takes more care and attention than I can be bothered with. Plus we like our gravy quite thick and too much flour means you end up with more of an opaque gloopy sauce than a nice glossy gravy.

I use Bisto powder (definitly NOT the fecking awful instant granules which are hydrogenised fat shavings loaded with salt and artifical flavouring and chemicals) but the old fashioned gravy browning powder.

I love my Bisto powder. It's like a cross between flour and cornflour in texture and it blends really easily and gives a nice deep glossy finish. It doesn't have much flavour though. It's just gravy browning which is a thickener with caramel colouring so you do need the meat juices and/or some nice stock for flavour.

I don't drain off any fat first. I add the water to the roasting tray, (or stock depending on how much meat juice there is) bring it to the boil and gradually stir in the Bisto powder that has been mixed to a smooth runny paste with some water.

Then once it's thickened and cooked through for a few minutes I decant it into a fat separator jug.

Bisto gravy granules have their place for very occasional emergency use and I find it handy to keep some in the event that I might need to stretch a proper gravy if I haven't made enough, or to put with sausage and mash because you never have an meat juices for a proper onion gravy, but that's about it.

But they just don't taste anything close the the quality, flavour or texture of proper gravy made with real meat juices and I wouldn't dream of drowning my lovingly made roast dinner in a gravy made from nothing but water and instant granules.

I bought some of the Bisto powder last year, but when I realise how much salt was in it I threw it away, something like 1/4 of it was salt.

My grandmother makes the best gravy ever! She uses Comptons gravy salt.
She uses a Falcon enamel roasting tin which can be used in the oven then on the hob after. She roasts the meat in an inch of water with the lid on, this gives a succulent meat and plenty of meat juices, then adds flour & gravy salt (mixed to a paste so no lumps) and stock cube. Devine. Oh, and her Yorkshire puddings are out of this world!

I do a 'make as you go' gravy to take the stress out of it. Drain the juices off about 3 or 4 times during cooking, adding boiling water/wine to the roasting tin and scraping all the crunchy bits as I go. Drain into a clear glass. To get rid of the fat, I either keep this glass in the freezer (fat solidifies) or I tilt the glass and use a turkey baster to suck it off. (although now I've heard of a fat separator I'm going to google!). Make up the bisto powder (browning) with cold water. While I'm boiling the vegetables, I put the juices in a saucepan, turn on the heat, add the gravy powder paste and stir, adding the veg water (plus wine/redcurrent/apple juice/horseradish etc). The gravy stays bubbling away while I am resting the meat, I pour in the resting juice (you don't get any fat at this stage) and that's it. Much better in my opinion than making the gravy right at the end, which is the busiest/stressful time with a roast.

You can buy it by the pot in posh places like delis, farmers markets and Waitrose.

Bisto and the water from the veg.

I'm not a brand snob but Bisto does taste better than generic supermarket.

No idea how to make my own gravy but might try some of the instructions above. We use Bisto Best and at Christmas I buy the gravy paste tubes rather than granules.

Sandancer I want that now! What is gravy salt!? Why do Grannies always make the best gravy!?

I live in a flat and my neighbour is 87 and she makes her son a Sunday roast every week....it smells like my Grannies' used to and I want to knock on her door and say "Please make my gravy too!"

Granny's used to.

I pay $15 a tub for imported bisto here. Well worth it.

Two for one recipe to follow, gravy and roasties
A gravy for me is
Drain water from parboiling roasties into bowl
Shake potatoes with melted butter in saucepan
Empty in roasting tray and stick in over. Leave the one buttery potato that always gets stuck at the bottom.
Then put red wine in sauce pan. Reduce, smashing potatoes as you go, and add a teaspoon of paxo (dp's ONLY good cooking tip in 12 years).
Top up with potato (and veg if boiling them) water, and the add the magic bisto. Simmer for at least 20 mins.
When meat is done (whatever it is) pour in the pan/resting juice to the gravy.

I do both. I either just use bisto, or put roasting tin on hob, add water and bit of flour, crank up the heat to reduce it all to make a thick gravy. Might add bisto if I've added to much water and it won't reduce.

I run off excess fat from the roasting tray into a cup, then put the tray back on the heat so all the bits caramelise. 2tbs flour or cornflour to a thibk paste, then use veg water or stock to thin back down, whisting all the while and scraping down any crispy bits from the side of the tin. For pork I might use hot cider unfused with sage instead of stock, or maybe wine depending on the meat. For venison I put in a glass of port and a coupel of spoons of redcurrant jelly for richness/sweetness, but the basic gravy is always the same.

ClawHands
Gravy salt is available in most supermarkets and butchers for around 60p. I've tried her methods and use the same ingredients; my gravy is good but nowhere near as good as hers but she has been making roasts for over 60 years. Same with her Yorkshires - she has shown me everything, I even cooked them in beef dripping like hers but there's just something missing from mine... Love her.

As a veggie I don't like using granules as they have enzymes and extracts from meat in (I didn't even think the vegetable stock ones were really veggie? Even so I don't like the taste!)

So, I make my own.

1. Save all the water from boiled veggies (ie carrots, beans, peas, brocolli etc)
2. Chop and fry an onion until nicely browned
3. Pour in the veggie water, add some flour and keep stirring to desired thickness
4. I normally add a bit of garlic and some salt and pepper too, just as personal taste.

Obviously for carnivores, replace the boiled veggie water with a bit of water out of the kettle splashed into the tin/tray/pan you cooked the meat in, so you're using the meat juices instead.

My dad's northern heritage was good for this :p

I always make gravy from scratch, and it is no hassle at all.
I always use a few carrots as a trivet underneath the meat when it is roasting. When the meat is done, take it off to rest, and mash the carrots up with a fork into the meat juice.
If you've got space on the hob for the roasting tray, use that, if not, tip the contents into a pan. Add more stock (plus a splash of wine if you want to) and bring it back to a simmer. Put some cornflour and water in a cup and stir it to a paste, then add that to the pan and stir it until the flour is cooked off and the gravy is thick enough.

Voila!