Gravy for Christmas dinner

[CookieMonster2]

I'm afraid to admit that when I do gravy its Bisto gravy granuals because its quick and easy and everyone likes it.

However, I somehow think this isn't going to be acceptable for Christmas dinner for a lot of people so intend to make some proper gravy. The problem is that all the recipes I have seen use all the 'juice' from the meat, but I really don't want to do this because it makes it really fatty.

I thought it was possible to make gravy using stock, flour to thicken it up, and not much else. Can anyone help me out?

www.jamieoliver.com/magazine/recipes-view.php?title=get-ahead-gravy

that's not really what you asked, but tis a good recipe and nice to be able to do it in advance!

I like the idea of making it in advance but that recipe sounds a bit complicated for someone who normally uses Bisto!
Thanks though.

Dead simple make ahead gravy recipe:

Cut up onions and soften in oil.
Add flour and mix until all the oil is absorbed and a roux is made.
Add hot chicken or poultry stock, mix well until no lumps remain.
Simmer for 5minutes.
Strain through a sieve.
Allow to cool and put into the fridge until you need to heat it up.

I would recomment making your gravy ahead as it frees up time and space when you most need it in the kitchen.

You need to pour the juices off, let them settle for a bit and skim the fat off the top if you want real gravy without the fat. You can get special jugs with a spout at the bottom from Lakeland etc to make this easier (they work by pouring the juices out from under the fat rather than skimming the fat off the top). Turkey won't be very fatty compared to a lot of other meats, though - there won't be huge amounts of fat to remove. You can also pour a few glasses of wine/stock/water into the bottom of the roasting tin to increase the amount of juice you are left with.

If you want to use ready made stock to increase your gravy volume, I think those Knorr chicken stock pot ones are not bad at all.

Also, you can use vegetable cooking water to increase your gravy volume - carrot is particularly good as it's sweet and tasty.

I'd put a couple of onions, a couple of carrots, a leek, a couple of sticks of celery and some peppercorns in a pan with some water and simmer it for forty minutes or so while you are cooking other stuff, personally. Strain off the liquid and save for the gravy (basically this is vegetable stock). Pour this into the roasting tin when you have taken the turkey out of it, heat a little on the hob and stir well to get all the brown bits on the tin dissolved nicely. This should make a great basis for a proper gravy. Then mix up as much cornflour and water as you need (quantities on the side of the packet) and add this to your turkey juices and veg water. Heat gently until it thickens. I sometimes add a teaspoonful of Bisto powder instead of one teaspoonful of cornflour (the old-fashioned stuff which is basically onion powder, caramel and cornflour rather than the granules).

You can also buy ready-made fresh stock in tubs but it won't taste of much without the cooking juices.

I use sheeplikessleep's jamie oliver link and tis fab

In fact [smug] tis done and in the freezer

But gravy has been a long and winding road for me... and my advice would be not to use Christmas as the first time you try the gravy thing...Waitrose and M&S do good ones.

Although I can do a gravy now with a normal roast, I still don't find it easy. And I still wouldn't have the confidence to try it as Christmas....

Am gravy coward

As Horton says, gravy doesn't have to be fatty. With any roast, beef/lamb/chicken/turkey, cook a few cut up onions, carrot and celery with the roast, tucked in, then you take the meat out and rest it, put the veg to one side ( these are delicious ) then skim off most of the fat and either keep for future use ( eg saute pots ) or throw it away. Tip the roasting tin to one side and the fat will form a separate layer on the top so you can scoop it off with a spoon. Reserve about two tablespoons of fat plus the juices, then with the heat off, mix in a few tablespoons of flour, then add cooking veg water ( potato the best ) slowly, scraping the bottom of the pan to get the crusty bits off. Turn the heat on very gently and keep adding water and stirring until you have the thickness you like.

Buy a supermarket gravy from the chiller cabinet as back up if you're worried.

NOOOO, carrot is the best! But any will do. Not sure if I'd recommend sprout but it might be interesting!

Also, if you have a bay leaf, add one of those to my stock recipe above. Very tasty.

Why don't you buy a chicken and have a practice with that at the weekend, before the big day? The idea is exactly the same, as taffeta says.

Ah well Horton ( btw I see you are on telly on Sat ), my mum told me never to use carrot water as it was too sweet. But then we are salt fiends in our family.

Ah, we are salt-haters in our family so this may be useful for Cookie, depending on where she stands on the salt spectrum!

Am I on telly? Hoorah! Must record for DD.

I know you are all right - I shouldn't have left it this late before I started to think about making gravy, but somehow I have. I can't face letting someone else make it, which is my backup option, because then people just remember that you don't know how to make gravy and forget that you made everything else yourself. I'm sure everyone has something that they cheat at and mine is gravy.

Sorry to rant. I'm fed up of Christmas already and am avoiding everything I need to do by drinking wine .
My plan is to practice next week using a few of the ideas above. Including using celery to make a stock as that sounds quite good.

Thanks for all your help.

Celery is lovely in stock. You can also add thyme if you fancy it - lovely with poultry. Also - a good slosh of sherry, a squirt of garlic puree, some salt and pepper and maybe some redcurrant jelly are all good options for perking up gravy if you feel it's not as nice as it should be.

Best of luck. And you could totally buy a couple of tubs of the ready-made 'fresh' chicken gravy in case of disasters. Just chuck everyone out of the kitchen and secretly empty it into a pan if you need to. Hide it in a carrier bag at the back of the fridge. We won't tell.

I always cheat at Yorkshire puddings. I am utterly crap at them, if it makes you feel any better.