Turkey Gravy
- Howie Bulka
- Nov 13
- 8 min read
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The other day I was grocery shopping when I ran into a woman who had been a frequent guest of Marché, the fancy French restaurant I owned and operated years ago. We reminisced fondly, inquiring about the families and all that. She recounted how her young son had learned to love vegetables after being served a demi-tasse of a watercress soup at Marché. She thought out loud about how great it would be if she could make the soup for her grandchildren.
“Would you share the Recipe?”, she asked
“I would be happy to share the recipe”, I said, “but I don’t have one.”
She looked at me questioningly.
“It was a classic cream of vegetable soup,” I told her. “Onions, watercress, broth and a touch of cream and butter.”
She appeared, confused, perhaps disappointed.
“It’s like making scrambled eggs” I said, “more a technique than a recipe, either you know how or don’t”.
She frowned, then mustered a smile.
“We sprinkled little brown bread croutons on top”, I called after her, but it was too late. She was gone.
I couldn’t help feeling that I had just offended this dear woman. I don’t think she bought my explanation. I could just imagine her recounting the story to her friends. “A soup without a recipe? Nonsense. Mr.-Big-Shot-Chef doesn’t have the time to bother with such things. What a shmuck.”
With Thanksgiving just around the corner, it is certain that requests for recipes will be coming my way. There will be requests for pie dough and pecan pie filling, for sure. Cranberry relish and stuffing, sweet potatoes without marshmallows, green beans without Cream of Mushroom Soup, cranberry relish. I could go on. But no question will be proffered with more frequency and with more urgency than ‘How do you make gravy?’, and that’s the one I dread because you see, I don’t have a recipe for gravy.
Even the most ambitious household cook finds making gravy a daunting task. It’s not that recipes for gravy don’t exist. Cookbooks, magazines, the Internet and cable television are swarming with them. But they’re useless when the rubber hits the road and you’ve got twenty minutes to turn that roasting pan of greasy goo into good gravy. Call your Mother-in-Law. She’ll tell you how to make gravy, but I’ll bet you she doesn’t have a recipe. She can tell you how she makes her gravy, but that won’t help much when the time comes to make your gravy. The problem is that unless you know how, you’re screwed, because “It’s like making scrambled eggs, more a technique than a recipe, either you know how or you don’t”.
I could end this missive right here you know. I’ve already told you I don’t have a recipe for gravy. But then you might come away thinking that 'Mr. Big Shot Chef' doesn’t have the time to bother with such things. What a shmuck, you might think. Well, normally that wouldn’t bother me, but the holidays are fast upon us and I’m feeling ‘the spirit’. So, let’s take a moment to consider making gravy.
The traditional methodology for making turkey gravy is a cruel hoax. Household cooks have been led to believe that somehow, in the time it takes to rest your beautifully roasted bird, you will be able to deglaze the roasting pan and magically turn that greasy schmutz into good gravy. But that’s just not reality. First off, a roasted turkey does not generate nearly enough schmutz to make enough gravy for your thanksgiving table, let alone the leftovers. Secondly, there are a million things to do in the moments before dinner is served. Do you really want to be sweating over a saucepan while your guests toast to the holidays? Lastly, making gravy is not a quick process. It benefits from a slow hand.
There is a better way to make gravy. It’s the way I make gravy when I cook Thanksgiving dinner at home and it’s the method all restaurants use, at whatever scale necessary. Professional gravy makers take an infinitely more practical approach. We prepare a ‘Gravy Base’ built on chicken stock days or even weeks in advance. On turkey day, we simply incorporate the pan dripping from our roasted turkey into the Gravy Base, add a few last-minute ingredients and voila! Turkey Gravy.
How to Make Turkey Gravy
This recipe (hah!) will yield approximately five cups of turkey gravy, an amount sufficient for 12-15 people. This would imply that you are cooking a relatively large turkey, 18-20 pounds.
We begin by preparing a rich chicken stock.
You will need a Chicken (preferably with giblets), a pot that will comfortably hold your chicken, 8–10-quart capacity should be about right, with a lid. You’ll also need one gallon of water and some kind of strainer or sieve.
Rather than using chicken bones, we are going to use a whole chicken to prepare our chicken broth. This is simply a matter of practicality. Not only will this approach yield the stock we need for our Gravy Base, but it will also provide us with a pound or two of perfectly poached chicken meat which we can use to make chicken salad, tacos, pot pie etc.
Note the weight of your chicken. Remove the packaging. Rinse your chicken under cold water, taking care not to splash water on your kitchen counters. If you do, clean it up. Remove the innards. Keep the giblets and the neck. Feed the liver to your cat.
Place the whole chicken, breast side up into your pot. If you have the innards, put them in the pool as well. Pour one gallon of water over the bird. The water should cover the bird by about two inches. If it doesn’t add more water. Put the pot on a high heat. As soon as the water comes to a rolling boil, turn the heat to low. Skim the stock to remove the foamy stuff and any fat that has risen to the top. Adjust the heat so that the stock is barely simmering. Put the lid on the pot. Cook the bird, covered, for ten minutes per pound. I asked you to note the weight, remember? It will almost certainly be between 45 and 55 minutes (i.e. 4.5 -5.5 pounds). Turn off the heat, keep the lid on, and allow the stock and bird to cool to room temperature(ish). Refrigerate overnight, covered, in the cooking pot
The next day, remove the pot from the fridge. Use a spoon to remove the congealed fat that has settled on the surface. Remove the bird to a bowl and pick the meat off the bones. Return all the other stuff, bones, skin, innards, etc. to the pot with the broth.
Return the pot to the stove. Over high heat, cook the broth, uncovered, until the liquid is reduced to four cups, more or less. Eyeball it. Strain the broth through a mesh sieve, Discard the bones etc. You will need four cups of broth. Measure it. If it is less than four cups add water to make up the difference. If it is greater than four cups, you can reduce it further. In any case, put the broth back into a pot. Adjust the liquid volume.
Make a Roux
You will need 8 ounces of unsalted butter, one cup of all-purpose flour, a small saucepan and a small wire whisk. Melt the butter in the saucepan. When the butter is fully melted add the flour all at once. Lower the heat and stir the roux until the butter and flour are combined. Continue to cook, stirring frequently for a few minutes or until the roux is aromatic and has darkened in color just a bit. Roux will burn, so stay on it. Immediately remove the roux to a bowl or storage container. Set aside.
Thicken the Stock with The Roux
You will need a wire whisk, the roux and your stock.
Note that we have made more roux than we will need for this recipe. Place the stock on a medium heat. When the stock comes to simmer, grab a glob of roux with the business end of the whisk and stir the roux into the boiling stock, vigorously. After a moment, observe the thickness of the gravy base. If the thickness is how you like your gravy, the base is done. If the base is too thin (which it will very likely be) add another glob of roux to your whisk and stir it in. Once again observe the thickness of the base. If it’s thick enough, it’s done. If not repeat the process until, in your estimation, it looks like good gravy. Having achieved the desired thickness, the Gravy Base is done. It will keep refrigerating for a week, frozen indefinitely. The wise cook will have the Gravy Base in the freezer before Halloween.
Deglaze the Turkey Roasting Pan
You will need a one-quart glass measuring cup, a small ladle, your freshly roasted turkey, the gravy base, some water, Salt, (freshly ground) Pepper, and thyme, fresh or dry (I prefer dry). Optional ingredients might include a splash of white wine, minced garlic, or a splash of cream. Remember this is nobody else’s gravy, so you go girl. I like dried porcini mushrooms, but they need to be strained out of the gravy before serving.
At this point you have roasted a turkey that has been briefly rested in advance of carving. Remove it from the roasting pan. You will be looking into a glorious mess of brown bits and greasy goo; the Schmutz I talked about earlier. Pour two cups of water over the bottom of the pan and using a spoon or a spatula, scrape up everything, I mean everything, that is stuck to or swimming in that pan until it has become one with the added water. Now pour all that stuff into a quart measuring cup. The fat will rise to the top. There may be quite a lot of it. Use a ladle to skim the fat off the top. Discard the fat or save it for other uses (we’ll talk).
Add the Turkey Drippings to the Gravy Base
In a small saucepan, bring the gravy base to a simmer. Add the deglazing liquid. Taste your gravy. Add a bit of everything, salt, pepper, thyme, etc. Taste again. The sauce will probably need to reduce a bit to get back to your preferred thickness. Know that the flavors will concentrate as it reduces, so add your finishing touches in stages. Watch the salt. Also, the gravy will thicken a bit as it goes from stovetop to your mashed potatoes, so don’t over-reduce it. If you do, a splash of water will correct it. A good gravy should be rich and fully flavored, with plenty of salt and pepper. It should be silky smooth, never gloppy,
Serving Your Gravy
As my guests bumble their way to the table, I add a pinch of this and a splash of that to my gravy until it is just right. I always place my gravy on the table last. It’s the starting bell. I leave about one third of it behind so that my guests will have warm gravy when they reach for second helpings. And that’s good gravy.
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