My horrible gravy ruined Christmas dinner - advice needed!

[ilovepiccolina]

I decided to make a 'proper' gravy this year. Roasted the giblets with carrot, onion, celery & herbs, wine & water, then strained it.

It was supposed to have the tasty bits from the roasting tin added but DH thought it was ready & poured it all over. It tasted disgusting, sort of 'tainted'. Is there some part of the giblets that you're not supposed to use?

You really need the bits from the roasting tin - that is like the stock.

Nigella says not to use the liver?

And the liver can be quite bitter, it has the bile ducts on it (I think!)

Bertie - yes, but the horrible taste was there already.

Northern - that's interesting. Does she say why? (If 'Because it tastes foul' then that's my query solved!)

X post. Thanks.

She doesn't say why but bile ducts sounds likely to me! Faced with groping through the giblets for the liver I packed in the idea and used schwartz packet stuff which was very nice!

Yes there are definitely bits that are bitter. I thought it was the kidneys though - will have a gooogle

[http://busycooks.about.com/od/howtocook/a/gravy101.htm]]

that says the liver to be removed as is bitter. HTH

I found Nigella's roast turkey with 'make ahead gravy' and she definately uses the liver. Confusing.

That is odd because in the all spice gravy in the Christmas book she specifically excludes it!

Mrs Bun, thanks for the link. Yes, it does say to remove the liver because it's bitter. That'll be it then!

Perhaps her 'make ahead' gravy tasted bitter, so she changed the recipe!

As gravy experts can you help me please?! I also made vile gravy by not straining enough of the fat off, stirred up the crunchy bits fine but once I'd thickened it it was so greasy it tastd horrid Is there any way to rescue gravy that's too greasy?

It can taste bitter but the stock is only part of it. To do mine I made the stock incl liver.
Then when turkey out of oven, poured off fat and added couple of spoons to pan. Low heat and cooked it off, scrapping as I went. Then added stock slowly and tablespoon or so of cranberry. Went a bit lumpy so put it through sieve.

I love gravy, love love love it

I've made too greasy gravy before - best thing to do is to let it settle and see if you can spoon off the fat on top (I find this easier in a see-through pyrex measuring jug - you can see far better what you are doing and how far the fat goes down)

foxinsocks - unfortunately it didn't separate out, I'd already added the cornflour so it was all incorporated into the liquid

Giblet stock tastes, well, like boiled blood and guts, which is essentially what you had with some onion etc. The sweet 'meaty' taste comes from the pan juices so you need that to put the two together for gravy.

IF your pan juices are fatty you need to pour them into a separate jug first, then skim mostofthe fat off with a spoon before mixingwith the giblet stock, and then adding cornflower that you've pre-mixed withwater to make a paste. Yes, gravy thus takes at least 3 saucepans and 2 jugs. This is why the dishwasher was invented.

bisto best