Easy how to make gravy recipe for turkey or chicken, for Thanksgiving or Christmas, or just dinner. Really good gravy is not hard to make, watch our gravy video to learn the steps. Chef Erica Wides joins Eric and walks us through the steps, and we learn some cool stuff about deglazing the pan and all.
How To Make Gravy – the basics
Here are the key steps to making great tasting gravy:
• Have some extra good chicken or turkey stock on hand. Store bought is ok, but buy the good stuff
• A quality white wine, bourbon, whiskey or hard cider will release unique flavor compounds
• When adding the alcohol to the pan, turn off the burner to prevent the alcohol from turning into flame.
• After adding the flour, bring the gravy to a boil so the starch molecules do their thing and thicken the sauce.
• The gravy will thicken more as it cools
In this how to make gravy video, we talk about Thanksgiving and Christmas and Holiday Cooking, you can apply this gravy recipe to all sorts of foods. If you roast meat in the oven, you can use the pan drippings and this gravy recipe to make a super cool tasting gravy to go with your meat. In other words, this is not just for the holidays and turkey.
And again, this proves to me that you do not have to have fancy equipment or foods to make a great tasting meal. I used store bought chicken, added some celery, carrot, and onion to make what is called a mirepoix, but is, in my mind, a bunch of vegetables underneath a chicken. But these vegetables are key to how to make gravy that tastes wow. Celery is one of those low key vegetables that is a secret flavor source for so many stocks.
We have a number of Thanksgiving recipe videos here for you, check them out and let us know your suggestions and comments below, always good to hear from you.
Steve
Outstanding episode, Eric! It must be nice to be surrounded by so much of the food movement there in New York.
Please have Erica on again – hey! It’s the “Eric & Erica Show!”
fiona enzo
Great video! Thank you! Love the dog ambience too. Is that a Chicago accent?
Also how woulg giblets be used – to make the stock?
Eric Gunnar Rochow
Erica is from Long Island, NY. and yes, you can use the giblets to make the stock that goes into the gravy. thanks! eric.
erica wides
Use all the giblets EXCEPT the liver in the stock. Livers make stocks cloudy and bitter. Instead, you can saute the liver in butter, add a drop of brandy or cognac (or hard cider!) and eat it or chop it up and add to stuffing…mmmm.