How do you make your delicious gravy?

[Scarletohello]

Am a bit confused about the best way to make gravy for a Xmas dinner. I love gravy but often just resort to gravy granules!

Anyone got a foolproof method for delicious gravy...?

Marking my place. I prefer mine without the animal fat added though.

Put your meat on a bed of veg i.e onions celery carrots and roast for specified time. The veg should be quite mushy. Put the roasting tin on the hob and reduce down. Add some veg water and a teaspoon of cornflour to thicken. Season and finally pass the gravy through a fine sieve and really press the veg to get all thr flavour out of them. You can add a bit of gravy browning too

If you dont want the animal fat you will have to let the roasting juices cool and then skim the fat off. To speed it up you can put the juices in a jug on ice. I have on of those fat seperator things but find it doesnt work well

Alternatively....

Take meat out of the roasting tin and put the roasting tin on the hob.
Add flour and make a roux with the fat from the meat and cook for a few minutes
Add the vegetable water, an oxo cube and some gravy browning and stir until it thickens.

I'm not sure it's possible to make gravy without animal fat WholeNutt - but am prepared to be corrected.

Depends how much faff you want.

If I'm being organised I do mine early and freeze and use chicken wings instead of a joint for the juices. Place them on a veg trivot, roast well then add a glass of wine, a star anaise and bring up to the boil on the hob. Coat wings and veg with flour, add as much chicken stock as you need gravy and leave to simmer for an hour on the hob. I use my stock pot for this bit. Give the veg and wings a good bashing with your potato masher at this point to get more flavour out.

After an hour or so have a taste. Add seasoning and more water to thin if needed. Strain the veg and wings out and you should be left with a lovely gravy. Freeze until the day before you need it.

Warm it up gently. Give it a good whisk up and you can add more water or meat juices to thin. Or flour or gravy granules to thicken.

You might find the exact recipe somewhere on Jamie Olivers website. I nicked it a couple of years ago!

I make a trivet of veg under the turkey and then use the juices (minus as much fat as possible) and squish the veg through a sieve into the juices heat up and add some sauce flour to thicken together with some seasoning and then thin it down a bit with stock as it is too strong otherwise. you can do the same with any meat and flavour accordingly, i.e. you can add some orange zest/juice if having duck or cherry goes nice with duck too. a touch of fresh mint to go with lamb and some apricots goes nice with pork or ham.

A splash or two of mulled wine gives it a wonderful festive flavour.

You can make gravy granules taste nicer by adding some meat juice.

I always make a stock beforehand using chicken wings.

I though a dozen or so wings in a roasting tray, along with 3 roughly chopped carrots, 3 sticks of celery, couple of cloves of garlic and a roughly chopped large brown onion. I don't bother peeling the veg. Then a splash of olive oil, sprinkle of Malden salt and a couple or three sage sprigs.

Roast for about 40 mins at 180 until everything is just tinged, then, while still in the roasting tray I give it all a rough mash, before tipping the lot into a large stock pot, 2-3 pints of cold water and then simmer for an hour or so. Strain well, squeezing as much out of the bones/veg as possible and then, once it's cold pop in the fridge for a couple of hours until the fat has solidified, then remove that. I then use the stock to make the gravy with the turkey roasting juices.

Wow some great ideas here. Love the idea if making it in advance using chicken wings. Will do that next time I roast a chicken. Wine and star anise too? Yum! :)

Yup, the make ahead gravy that Jamie Oliver did on his tv show. I only did it last year first time as I'm not a huge gravy fan but FIL is. I really loved it. And I'm not a gravy person.

www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/chefs/jamie-oliver/turkey-gravy-recipe

Da bomb

I can't believe nobody has mentioned using the neck and giblets, they make it so tasty.
I do Jamie's make ahead gravy then on the day add the neck and giblets to simmer for an hour or so before removing. I then corn flour in the roasting tin on a low heat with some wine and whisk in the stock. A bit of red current jelly is tasty too.

Jamie's get ahead gravy is fabulous.

Ditto jamies gravy if you're having turkey, it's brilliant!

notso - i use the giblets as part of the trivet under the meat so they roast under there and all the flavour soaks into the veg :)

I try to get a turkey witht he giblets. Boil them with some root veg for stock. Using the roasting pan, pour off all the fat leaving the juices at the bottom. Put the turkey stock in and scrape the marmitey bits off. top up with stock you have boiled the green veg in (never poptato water as it's tastless). I use turkey granules to thicken or bisto powder/cornflour slaked in a bit of cold water. I dont strain my gravy as the bottom is the best bits.

I make onion gravy by chopping four red onions into segments, caramelise in knob of butter, add flour, garlic, and toast it for a couple of minutes then a glass of red wine, stock and meat juices and boil rapidly with a bay leaf.

Tastes gorgeous and there is never any leftovers!

I would make a veg stock and mix with the meat juices like this tyne-teas.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/gravy-from-home-made-stock.html

I cheat.

I buy posh gravey, I find marks and spencer most flavoursome, and use that as my base....

Add some red current jelly to it, meat jiuces and some sherry or PORT.

Yum.

Marsala is also an option instead of the wine.

Another vote for onion gravy! so good that i often drink the leftovers!

I always simmer the neck and giblets with bay, celery, carrot, onion, peppercorns and salt in a pan of water, the day before. The next day I put a pint of veg or chicken stock (I use knorr) around the turkey and then put a double thick layer of foil like a tent over the bacon covered turkey. The stock helps to cook the turkey. Once the turkey is done, I skim the fat from the meat juices and then combine with the strained giblet stock into a pan before thickening with cornflour.