Award Winning gravy

[millicent]

I havent won any awards, its just a nickname i gave cause i havent tasted a nicer gravy anywhere. The down sides are, two ingredients are uk products, and i can only make the gravy for Lamb, Beef and Chicken. They dont sell the same flavourings for other meats.

Ingredients

Onion
Oxo cube (stock cube)
Bisto (gravy browning)
greens water (optional but does add to the flavour and you dont need so much water with the meat)

Chicken.......I bake this sitting in about 2inches of water
Beef...........about 1 1/2 inches
Lamb..........same
Depending on the size of the meat and the amount of gravy you need.

Method
I ALWAYS,ALWAYS chop an onion into the water, then bake the meat/poultry(include giblets wherever possible)

After cooking, strain the meat juices into a saucepan (keep the giblets with the juices until you serve, when using chicken and dont worry if a little stuffing spills into the juices,mmm more flavour.)
If you are boiling green veg, eg cabbage, sprouts etc, pour a little into the meat juices, it will give you more gravy and adds to the flavour.

crumble an oxo cube (this is for two adults) into the juices and leave to cool.
Mix up 2 or 3 teaspoons of Bisto with a little cold water, in a cup.

stir most( but not all as it may go too thick, then i quickly add a bit more greens water) of the Bisto into the cooled juices and reheat, stirring continuously as this thickens quickly, do not boil. low simmer for a couple of minutes and voila!

Run the gravy through a seive and serve. yum yum

PS Ive also done this with sausages, with burgers and even just with bones.(ive been a bit hard up, the gravy was beautiful)
The only reason i havent made pork gravy is because they dont make a pork oxo or bisto.

there you go. Its a bit bitty but youll end up with a full on flavour gravy that compliments your meat and you cant see through it.
any feedback welcome

 

[lulu]

I love gravy. I don't use oxo/bisto anything else though...

IMHO alcohol adds to a gravy, whether its wine, marsala, sherry....I usually like a bit of alcohol in there. My other must have ingredient, believe it or not, for plain roast meat is usually jam/jelly. With beef I might use redcurrent, pork might get apple jelly, or perhaps a little blackbcurrent, chicken again, usually redcurrnt, sometimes, marmalade, quince worked beautifully. The plainer the side dishes the braver I am with jam choice. I have never, nor do I ever envisage, using strawberry, but rasperry with chicken was aiousctually quite delicious on a plain roast chicken over rice. I don;'t go mad, its maybe a teaspoon, perhaps two, but it is good. The jam, alcohol jam combination is, ofcourse, important as well as the meat and sides!

 

[urmaniac13]

I agree with Lulu about wine... especially burgandy type adds a very rich, luscious flaver to the gravy. I don't use oxo, bisto or any kind of gravy mix either, to me they are too overpowering and give a sort of generic taste.
If you make a right choice of meat, the dripping from the meat, wine and some selected herbs are enough to make a tasty gravy. I also like green peppercorns in my gravy.
BTW, what is "greens water"?

And yes Lulu, I quite like fruit flavour in many of my roast dishes, especially pork and turkey. Our lastest craze also is meatballs served with raspberry jam! Sounds weird but trust me, yummy!!

 

[lulu]

Oh wow, sort of a take on Scandanavian style? Just meat balls and jam? Hmm, I might try that! If you do any thing special will you post the recipe?

 

[urmaniac13]

Oh wow, sort of a take on Scandanavian style? Just meat balls and jam? Hmm, I might try that! If you do any thing special will you post the recipe?

Yeah, we picked up the idea actually at the Ikea restaurant, where they serve their meatballs with lingonberry jam. Well, I can only find lingonberry product at Ikea, so when we don't have it we tried with raspberry jam (well, composta, more saucy than jam, works even better, as "marmellata" in Italy is pretty thick). And it was equally delicious!! Works also cranberries (mirtilli rossi), or good, not too sweet black cherry sauce.
Our polpettini are pretty normal, we prefer mixed mince with beef and pork, with an egg, some crumbled dried bread, pepper, dash of herb mix, ground mace or nutmeg, and ginger, formed and fried.
Give it a try, it will be quite a pleasant surprise!!

 

[lulu]

ROFL laughing, I'm going to try it....I love meatballs. :0)

 

[AllenOK]

We have equivalent products to the Oxo cube and Bisto here, I do believe. You can buy bullion cubes, usually beef or chicken. While I haven't seen Bisto, I have seen a product called Kitchen Bouquet, which is just a browning additive to add caramelized color to liquids.

Personally, I prefer to go the tried-and-true, old-fashioned natural route. I make my own stocks. I have on hand at all times Chicken Stock, usually some Beef Stock, and also I will usually have some Shrimp or Seafood Stock. My homemade stock is extremely concentrated, to save space in the freezer. I just dilute it down to what strength I want.

When I roast, I usually add some roughly-cut classic Mirepoix, just some onions, celery, and carrots. Giblets usually get tossed into the scrap baggie in the freezer for the next batch of stock. When the item being roasted is done, it gets pulled out of the oven, and the meat placed on a plate or platter so it can rest. I don't have a roasting pan big enough to hold all the meat and still go on the stove, so I just cheat and pour all the drippings into a cast iron skillet. These dripping get cooked until all the water-based liquids have evaporated, and the protein-based part of the drippings get caramelized to a nice nut-brown. I then deglaze the pan with 3 - 4 c of my own homemade stock. I stir and scrape to get all the goodness up off the pan and dissolved into the broth. Here comes the tricky part. I will strain the broth into a gravy separator. This allows me to pour off the broth while leaving the grease in the cup. The broth gets poured back into the skillet. I'll bring it up to a boil, then tighten with a cornstarch slurry. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and my family is drooling!

 

[millicent]

slurp slurp, oh sorry just wiping the drool from my chin. Your gravy sounds amazing.
I would wonder about the meatballs and jam, are you sure youre not in the family way?
Greens water is the water which has turned green from boiling green vegetables in. Any greens,broccoli, calibrese,savoy.sprouts yum i love my greens.

 

[urmaniac13]

I would wonder about the meatballs and jam, are you sure youre not in the family way?
Greens water is the water which has turned green from boiling green vegetables in. Any greens,broccoli, calibrese,savoy.sprouts yum i love my greens.

No not actually... I would have never thought of it myself... as I mentioned above, I was inspired at the Ikea restaurant!! It works better with the kind of preserves with lower additional sugar content, not too thick(or comport, or fruit sauce).

And thanks for the explanation of greens water... never thought of recycling that kind of water!!