Gravy: Make it simple or make it more complicated.

The most BASIC of recipes for gravy is just the idea of flour cooked in butter and having broth mixed in.  That's pretty much it.  Salt and pepper of course but the three key ingredients are the foundation of any gravy.

Now people make a big deal out of making gravy with drippings, because it tastes better, and whole-heartedly I have to agree.  It's just not always POSSIBLE to make gravy out of drippings because sometimes you don't have that much drippings.  For those of you who WET BRINED your turkey, your drippings are actually too salt to use in your gravy.  Those of you who DRY BRINED the turkey, drippings in your gravy is totally allowed and doable.  But just because you can't make gravy with the drippings doesn't mean you shouldn't make it homemade.  You can and it is incredibly easy.

So what do you need to do to make a delicious gravy out of your drippings?  FLAVOR your drippings.  Underneath my roasting pan, I like to throw in carrots, onion parts, and celery.  Adding these things to the bottom of the roasting pan means that the drippings will cook with these ingredients flavoring them.

Also, I recommended in my post about cooking your bird, that about 30 minutes before you actually take the bird out of the oven, is to pour a cup of warm white wine over the bird. This helps flavor the bird a bit but also flavors your drippings! (which means more flavor for your gravy.)

Once your turkey is out of the oven, and if you're doing a drippings based turkey, you'll need to get the turkey out of the pan so that you can get to the drippings.  Once you do, you'll need a gravy separator to help you get the drippings in the most efficient manner.  (don't worry if you don't have one, you' just have to work a bit harder.)  A gravy separator will separate the fat from the delicious liquid.  You want more of the liquid and less of the fat.    If you don't have one, you'll have to struggle a bit to get the fat separated from the liquid, like asking your husband to sit there and spoon off all the fat so that you can have the other part.

This is my gravy separator, and you can see the fat has risen to the top, and the turkey based liquid is on the bottom.  This particular separator has a squeeze handle so that I can simply squeeze the liquid and not the fat.

Gravy
Makes 4 cups - easily halved or doubled

Ingredients
1/2 cup of butter or the fat from the drippings, or a combination
1/2 cup of flour
4 cups of hot chicken stock or hot separated liquid from the turkey pan.

Method
In a heavy saucepan, melt the butter and/or the drippings over medium heat. Add the flour and mix together, creating a roux (fancy word for a mixture of butter and flour). Cook whisking often, until the roux is bubbly and begins to darken, about 3-4 minutes. Add all at once, HOT broth or hot liquid from the turkey pan (hot broth prevents lumpy gravy.) and continue whisking. Bring gravy to a boil, and it will thicken. Season with salt and pepper. Serve HOT.

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