How do you make your gravy for your turkey?

[bytheMoonlight]

For a chicken roast I normally roast the chicken with a trivet of vegetables under the bird and then use them to make a gravy.

This year however, we are ordering a turkey from M&S Food to order range so not sure if there will be enough room to add the vegetables.

How else can I make a gravy?

I mix a bit of cornflour with a bit of cold water.

Then stir it into the roasting pan (after removing the meat) off the heat.

Then turn on the hob and add some of the cooking water from the vegetables.

Keep adding and stirring for a while and it should bubble away and get thicker.

You need to pour the fat and juices from the turkey into a saucepan or take the turkey off to rest and use the roasting tin itself with the fat left in. (Needs to be a sturdy tin which will survive being placed on a hob)

Add to this the water from cooking the vegetables (you may also need some chicken or vegetable stock at this point) and heat gently while stirring with a fork, then thicken with cornflour.

You can buy tubs of fresh stock to use. Useful to supplement the meat juices if you need gravy for a lot of people.

I tend to pour off the juices and fat from the meat into a jug, then spoon off most of the fat back into the roasting pan, or baste the turkey with it. Then when the potatoes are par boiled and into their roasting tin, I add the juices to the potato water. I dissolve in half a Kallo organic chicken stock cube, and add a glug of marsala or madeira Thicken with cornflour and water (or use the marsala instead of the water) keep stirring until thickened, and turn down to a simmer until needed.

I like the Kallo cubes because they contain natural extracts and no monosodium glutamate, unlike a lot of others.

I buy my (fresh) gravy from M&S when I buy the turkey.

Sorry, not helpful in terms of making your own, but it's actually nice and stress free!

Deglaze the pan with a cup of wine and a cup of cranberry juice, adds a lovely tang to the gravy.

With chicken, I don't often have veg in the tin. I spoon off most of the fat, then add a few tbspns plain flour and mix well, scraping up any bits on the bottom. Then slowly add cooking veg water ( I find potato water the best ) and some wine and seasoning as necessary.

However, this year with the turkey I am goin to make a giblet gravy as Delia suggests on Christmas Eve. If I can be bothered.

Bisto vegetable granules.

We had chicken tonight and I'm saving the juices to cook up with the carcass and some onion/celery/carrot tomorrow for stock to put in the freezer.

Then I'll add it to either a store bought gravy (have tried a few - all a bit grim, but Sainsbury't TTD the best) or attempt something in the pan on Xmas day.

I do it with ordinary self raising flour rather than cornflour, prefer the taste.

Take turkey out of the roasting dish, pour out most of the juices, just leaving a couple of tablespoons of the fat (which will be a mixture of fat from the turkey and bacon covering it and butter from basting it). Spoon flour in to the roasting pan (amount depends on size of turkey, mix it in and cook it a little first as this will help it to lose all its lumps later on easily and tastes good. Just like making a roux sauce really!

Then add the cooking water saved from the veggies. little by little and stir it in until absorbed and then add a little more, until it is the right taste and consistency. Slosh of sherry and spoon or two of redcurrant jelly help too (cranberry is nice too but can leave bits in, some people don't like to see them). And the merchant gourmet balsamic glaze is good to add a squeeze of too - beware the sainsburys and tesco balsamic glazes though - they taste cheap in comparison and you can taste the uncooked cornflour in them.

Important point to note it to make sure that nobody throws the saved veggie water away and washes the jug up, thinking they are being helpful!!

Last year due to staggered way things happened - potatos/parsnips were done first to get roasting etc, different veg took different times, I was able to 'reuse' the potato water to cook the parsnips, latter the carrots and broccoli etc - which meant it became really well flavoured and made gravy extra tasty. And no, didn't affect the taste of the other veg at all.