Gravy 101

I’ve cooked about four Thanksgiving dinners at this point in my adult life and have perfected a repertoire that makes it as easy as this unwieldy meal that I have stupidly cooked for upward of 20 people can be. But the one thing that has always proved elusive to me is the damn gravy. So when I saw the Gravy 101 article in this month’s Martha Stewart Living, my interest was piqued. Perhaps THIS recipe would give me the good stuff.

What’s annoying is that after a quick search on www.MarthaStewart.com I once again discover the conspiracy that magazine companies float to keep people buying new issues and wasting trees — there is almost NO correlation between the pages of Martha Stewart Living and her website. So if you see something really cool in one of her magazines? Save it because who knows when or if it will ever make it on her website or how you will be able to find it if it does! That said, my quick search of “Gravy 101” produces an almost identical article from 2008. The conspiracy thickens! But hopefully so will the gravy.

Martha’s recipe of course calls for homemade turkey giblet broth. Yeah, um. Maybe it’s because I was raised by an Organic Structure who likes to actually get her meals to the table on time, but even I, a perfectionist Organic Freedom would never consider this during such a labor and time intensive meal like Thanksgiving. Not when there are so many great non-MSG organic flavorful broths available today! But besides this one “skip it” suggestion, I think this Gravy 101 recipe might be the key to having flavorful and smooth gravy this Thanksgiving.

I had to read the article about three times before I truly understood what I had to do which is probably why I have failed so miserably before. The MAJOR key to gravy, however, are two tools. The first one is called a strainer and you must have one! That was my major mistake my first Thanksgiving. The second one is a fat separator and I’ve somehow made do without but I will remedy this soon. Martha has you basically making the gravy after the turkey is done, which is fine because the turkey needs to rest for at least 20 minutes before you serve it. Then you transfer what’s left in the pan into the fat separator, then you deglaze the pan, make what’s called a slurry in a jar with some of the broth and the flour which is apparently how you stop the lumps from happening, and then put it all back in the pan and voila. Here’s the link. 

It seems a little complicated to me, but I like the idea of cooking it in the pan. It seems kind of foodie to me and it’s NOT what my mother and grandmothers did growing up so I’m kind of intrigued by it. So we’ll see how things go. The one thing I have most definitely learned is NOT to use Wondra no matter what you do. Last year’s gravy was rather tasteless, but it was NOT lumpy because I finally just used flour to make the slurry and stirred very slowly and consistently. Love the jar idea. And the strainer is always a great back up plan! I worry about Classics, Organic Structures and Smart Structures trying this out for the first time at Thanksgiving unless they are helpers and not in charge as if something goes wrong then it will throw them off more than an Fun, Organic Freedom or Smart Freedom.

So as usual with most Martha ideas, this is more complicated than it has to be, but it’s probably going to be really really good.