THINKING ABOUT GRAVY

Newsflash!

You don't need drippings to make great gravy!! From Christopher Kimball, host of America's Test Kitchen, here's a fabulous recipe that can be served with any type of meat or poultry. (I know. It sounds too good to be true. But trust me. It works!) Better yet, it can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 4 days or frozen for up to 2 months.

I cut it out of USA Today two years ago and we were skeptical, but my sweetie made it and it's so delicious, it's become our go-to recipe on those rare occasions -- such as Thanksgiving or Christmas -- we need gravy. It is, as my house chef points out, a bit time consuming, but if you make it a day or so ahead of time, you've one more thing out of the way on Christmas.

Ingredients:

3 Tablespoons unsalted butter (I've gone ahead and used salted on those times we didn't have any unsalted in the house, then left out the salt at the end.)
1 carrot, peeled and chopped fine
1 rib of celery, chopped fine
1 onion, minced
1/4 cup all purpose flour (when I make it, I use Wondra to prevent lumps, but my sweetie has used All Purpose with no problem.)
2 cups low sodium chicken broth or stock
2 cups low sodium beef broth or stock
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon minced thyme or 1/4 teaspoon dried
5 whole black peppercorns
salt and pepper

To double, use a Dutch oven or stew pot to give the vegetables ample room for browning and increase cooking time by roughly 50%.

Melt the butter in the large saucepan (we use a stew pot) over medium heat. Add the vegetables and cook until softened and well browned. About 9 minutes.

Stir in the flour and cook, constantly stirring, until throughly brown, about 5 minutes.

Gradually whisk in the broths -- keep whisking to prevent lumps -- and bring to a boil.

Add the bay leaf, thyme, and peppercorns and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened, 20-25 minutes, skimming off any foam that forms on the surface.

Pour the gravy through a fine mesh strainer into a clean saucepan or bowl, pressing on the solids -- we use the back of a flat wooden spoon -- to extract as much liquid as possible. Discard the solids. Season with salt and pepper to taste. (We didn't find the need to add anything.)

Tip -- the color and flavor of this gravy comes from cooking the vegetables until they're well browned. It may seem as though they're turning too dark, but it truly is a necessary step to produce the richly flavored and colored gravy. To reheat after refrigeration, heat over low heat, stirring to recombine, or microwave, stirring often, until warm and smooth.

To thaw, place the gravy and 1 Tablespoon of water in a saucepan over low heat and bring to a slow simmer. The gravy may appear broken or curdled as it thaws, but a vigorous whisking will recombine it.

One thing I've learned -- in order to make a bit thicker gravy and give it more of the taste of the meat, is to brown a bit of Wondra flour in a pan -- stopping just short of the color I want (lighter for turkey, darker for standing rib roast), because like all rouxs, it darkens as it cools, then stirring in a bit of the already made gravy with some pan drippings, then adding it back to the pot.

As I said, it's a bit of work. But well worth it because 1) you don't have to spend hours while your roast or turkey is cooking, worrying about whether or not you're going to have a decent amount of drippings, 2) since you can make it days ahead of time, you don't have everyone standing around waiting to eat while you're sweating over trying to make gravy right before serving dinner, and 3) it tastes so much better than any jar or envelope gravy you might be tempted to use as a shortcut.

Enjoy.

Don't forget, tomorrow is Funny Friday video day. This time I'm going to share a trailer for my favorite must-see holiday movie and a picture of what may be the strangest, but whimsical, Christmas lawn decoration I've seen in a long time.