Secret of thick gravy, not watery pale stuff?

[sergeantmajor]

How do you do it? I mean from scratch, rather than from Bisto.

Trivet of vegetables to cook the roast on. Once roast is finished put the pan on your top burner. Mash the veggies up with the roast juices and flour. Glug of wine and reduce. Then add your stock. Strain through a sieve to get rid of veggie lumps.
Utterly delicious!!

Cook the meat in a tray/dish that you can heat on the job as well,as in the oven.
Take the meat out of the tray.
Stir whatever is to there up a bit.
Put a teaspoon or two of cornflour in a tiny bowl and add tiny amounts of cold water until it's the consistency of wallpaper paste or PVA glue
Tip it in to the dish and stir it in.
Put on the hob and keep stirring.
Start to add some of the water you've cooked the vegetables in.
Keep stirring
Add water until it's the consistency you want

Presumably the thickness is down to how much flour you use?

(That sounds as though I never make gravy. I do, I just always use the same amount of flour.)

I basically treat it the same way as a white sauce.

As for pale... I always think it's cheating, but basically you add gravy browning. When I make gravy for pies I add Marmite, but it has a definite taste which I'm not sure I'd want with a roast.

you can either use good gelatinous stock or thicken it with flour.

Thanks everyone. Whenever I add flour, even if I dilute it with water first, it always forms little white lumps in the gravy, which is more trouble than it's worth. I once tried making a roux to stir in, but no good either. So do you think if I cook some onions with the roast then I could blitz them into the gravy for texture?

Gravy is best smooth not textured.

You add the flour to the fat from the pan without any water added. Then add small amounts of veg water to the paste. We add stock pot, gravy browning, worcestershire sauce. How thick it turns out is hit and miss to be honest, chicken always seems to be make thick gravy but other meats generally thinner.

We cook it in a glass jug in microwave, not on hob.

Use a balloon whisk not a wooden spoon. I was told this many years ago and it changed the way my sauce/gravy looks.
Yes to a drop of gravy browning as well.

No water.

Add some flour to the leftover fat and whisk in, I use a tiny whisk. Then slowly add reserved veg water, preferably potato water from floury pots to further thicken. Whisk til combined then leave to gently bubble for up to 15/20 mins whilst you finish the rest of the roast prep.

I pour off some of the fat, and use the meat juices, Bisto and water. Bisto thickens and colours, and has no discernible taste, unlike Marmite or Bovril.