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Nov. 24th, 2006 04:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickYay! I got a free turkey carcass from the Sandra household. I knew I wouldn't get the one from Joe & Stacey's house (because they are great makers of soup) and I wasn't going to get the one from Jackie and Heather (because they were going to Ohio for Thanksgiving) but I didn't know about the SJ contingent. Fortunately, they pulled through and I have a happy turkey carcass from a sixteen pound turkey in my stock pot.
I like turkey stock, which I use in a variety of soups and things to improve them. Since there is rather a lot of turkey (and chicken) meat that I won't eat, making real stock from scratch results in a very happy kitty at my house. (The kitty eats what bits I will not eat.) That's not really ideal, though, since after a few nights of eating the chicken bits I do not eat, the kitty starts to think that she's entitled to diced chicken thighs for dinner every night. Getting a free turkey carcass is a bonus part of Thanksgiving that I'm a big fan of -- it's got all the stock parts still in situ and is burdened with none of the boring actual meat parts that I won't eat anyway. I really lucked out with San's bird carcass because she didn't deglaze the roasting pan a whole lot.
San's gravy didn't really do too well this year. She did some deal where you put shallots and celery and carrots in the bottom of the roasting pan and then cook the turkey in the pan and then pour off the juices and *some* of the veggies. Puree the veggies, add juices and cornstarch, make into gravy. I think the general idea was pretty sound and I'll even give a pass on adding pureed veggies to the mix because they were cooked in the roasting pan and should have been fine, all turkey-flavored and slow-roasted for proper caramelly goodness.
So what happened? Sandra said it looked great, all thick and rich and shiny, for about ten seconds before it got all thin again and divided (like the oil and vinegar in a salad dressing) into the veggie puree part and the broth part.
I think the cornstarch gave up on her. Cornstarch is a fragile and fickle mistress who is not suited to the demands of gravy. The starch bonds what make it thick can be broken by overstirring, by overheating, or by it being the wrong phase of the moon. Cornstarch is not the thickener for gravy. Some sadist decided that it should be and has been working on a worldwide campaign of persuasion since then to increase the general grief and misery on our big blue marble. Do not use cornstarch in your gravy. It sux0r.
Proper gravy -- a sturdy, robust, meaty sauce for on top of corn, mashed potatoes, stuffing, turkey meat (at the Thanksgiving day table) and on top of hot turkey sandwiches and (if any) leftover stuffing on the day *after* Thanksgiving -- proper gravy is made from flour, water, and drippings, seasoned with obscene amounts of salt and pepper.
You do not need a cookbook. You don't have to measure anything.
Roast your turkey in an oven according to whatever is trendy at the moment. (I don't know how you would make gravy with a deep-fried turkey. These directions are only for birds that have been roasted in such a way as to produce pan drippings.) Flip it over halfway through the cooking period, have it hang from a trapeze, whatever. When you're done cooking the bird and have removed it to "rest" for the twenty minutes or so that it should stand before carving, that is when you refer to this guide.
1. Pour off the pan drippings (ALL OF THEM, including the fat) from the roaster into another container. At my house, we use a big huge frying pan. Put the frying pan on a burner and turn it to medium.
2. Deglaze the roasting pan. This sounds all technical and chefly, but it's easy. Get some hot water -- we use the turkey-flavored broth from boiling up the turkey neck and giblets (which are fed to mother and brother-the-younger) -- and pour it in the roasting pan. Use between two (small turkey) and three (big turkey) cups of water. It's not important to be exact, here. If you measure, I will laugh at you. Take your fork and scuff all the dark-n-crispy dripping bits up. Flaky bits of dried, cooked blood, those are good too. Any crispy anythings on the roasting pan, you want them to come loose. DO NOT worry about "lumps" or "bits" because they'll all dissolve in the gravy process anyway. The goal here is to make sure that you get all the crispy parts and all the carmelized parts because THAT IS WHERE THE FLAVOR IS. Also do not worry about fat content. Gravy needs fat. It'll be fine.
3. Add deglazed stuff to turkey juices. (An enormous frying pan, I mean. Big. Huge. Suitable to hold six to eight cups of gravy. Honestly, if you're making gravy, there is no point in doing things halfway.)
4. Add flour to your drippings in the frying pan. The easiest way to do this is a whitewash. Take about 1/4 cup of flour (that's four tablespoons) and put it in a pint jar about half full of cold water. Put lid on, shake vigorously. Allow to stand for like five minutes. (You can do this step as early as the night before and just let it be in the fridge until gravy time.) The "let it stand" part is important because it helps make the lumps go away. Honest. This mix of flour and water is your whitewash. Now, stirring the juices with the fork (one hand), use other hand to pour in a thin stream of whitewash. KEEP STIRRING in a little whisk motion to evenly distribute the flour stuff. If you get lumps, well, don't worry about it too much.
5. Cook this until it boils, stirring it to keep the flour thickener from clumping and getting all yuck on the bottom of the pan. It should thicken up some. If it hasn't thickened and it has boiled for at least two minutes, you can add some more whitewash. Mix up as before, stir in as before. (Stop pouring before you get to the lumps. The thin stream helps you not pour in the lumps.)
NOTE: The thickening power of flour is time-delayed. You need to be patient and give it a chance to work. DO NOT assume that it isn't working and instantly add more. Let it boil a minute or two before giving up on it.
Also NOTE: Flour gravy HAS to be boiled for about three or four minutes *after it thickens up* to kill the raw flour flavor in it. It also goes through a slight color change when the flour flavor goes away, so you can look for that, too. The color gets... richer and deeper, kind of.
Final NOTE: Flour gravy thickens up as it cools. You want it a wee bit runnier at the boil than you want it to be when you're eating it.
When your gravy is the right thickness, add salt and pepper. If you engaged in brining your turkey, TASTE THE GRAVY BEFORE ADDING SALT!! I am not sure that it is possible to make edible gravy with a brined bird -- every time I've ever had the gravy from one, it's been way too damn salty. Gravy needs salt and pepper to taste okay. It's like soup in the amounts that it requires. When I make it, gravy always needs more pepper than I think it does.
Help! My gravy is too thick!! Add more liquid. Hopefully you have some more broth from cooking up the neck-n-giblets, but if not, you can also add water.
Help! My gravy is too thin! Add another shot of whitewash and boil it some more.
Help! My gravy tastes flat! Check salt and pepper levels. If you cooked an entire whole turkey of fourteen pounds or more, you should be fine as far as drippings go. A fourteen pound turkey will easily make six cups of gravy.
Help! My gravy is too salty! Congratulations! You now have a great story for next year's Thanksgiving on how you fucked up the gravy this year.
Help! My gravy is all gone! Christmas is right around the corner. You can wait a month.
Help! You won't believe what Their Darleen said about Our Shawn while passing the cranberry orange! Uhm. Have another glass of wine and try to play nice with each other. Maybe Darleen's famous Sweet Potato Casserole With Pineapples and Marshmallows didn't come out right this year and she's stressing. Maybe Our Shawn (married four times, divorced three and a half) needs to start thinking with the big head for a change. Seriously, have you tried the Riesling? It's quite good, nice and fruity but not overpowering...
I like turkey stock, which I use in a variety of soups and things to improve them. Since there is rather a lot of turkey (and chicken) meat that I won't eat, making real stock from scratch results in a very happy kitty at my house. (The kitty eats what bits I will not eat.) That's not really ideal, though, since after a few nights of eating the chicken bits I do not eat, the kitty starts to think that she's entitled to diced chicken thighs for dinner every night. Getting a free turkey carcass is a bonus part of Thanksgiving that I'm a big fan of -- it's got all the stock parts still in situ and is burdened with none of the boring actual meat parts that I won't eat anyway. I really lucked out with San's bird carcass because she didn't deglaze the roasting pan a whole lot.
San's gravy didn't really do too well this year. She did some deal where you put shallots and celery and carrots in the bottom of the roasting pan and then cook the turkey in the pan and then pour off the juices and *some* of the veggies. Puree the veggies, add juices and cornstarch, make into gravy. I think the general idea was pretty sound and I'll even give a pass on adding pureed veggies to the mix because they were cooked in the roasting pan and should have been fine, all turkey-flavored and slow-roasted for proper caramelly goodness.
So what happened? Sandra said it looked great, all thick and rich and shiny, for about ten seconds before it got all thin again and divided (like the oil and vinegar in a salad dressing) into the veggie puree part and the broth part.
I think the cornstarch gave up on her. Cornstarch is a fragile and fickle mistress who is not suited to the demands of gravy. The starch bonds what make it thick can be broken by overstirring, by overheating, or by it being the wrong phase of the moon. Cornstarch is not the thickener for gravy. Some sadist decided that it should be and has been working on a worldwide campaign of persuasion since then to increase the general grief and misery on our big blue marble. Do not use cornstarch in your gravy. It sux0r.
Proper gravy -- a sturdy, robust, meaty sauce for on top of corn, mashed potatoes, stuffing, turkey meat (at the Thanksgiving day table) and on top of hot turkey sandwiches and (if any) leftover stuffing on the day *after* Thanksgiving -- proper gravy is made from flour, water, and drippings, seasoned with obscene amounts of salt and pepper.
You do not need a cookbook. You don't have to measure anything.
Roast your turkey in an oven according to whatever is trendy at the moment. (I don't know how you would make gravy with a deep-fried turkey. These directions are only for birds that have been roasted in such a way as to produce pan drippings.) Flip it over halfway through the cooking period, have it hang from a trapeze, whatever. When you're done cooking the bird and have removed it to "rest" for the twenty minutes or so that it should stand before carving, that is when you refer to this guide.
1. Pour off the pan drippings (ALL OF THEM, including the fat) from the roaster into another container. At my house, we use a big huge frying pan. Put the frying pan on a burner and turn it to medium.
2. Deglaze the roasting pan. This sounds all technical and chefly, but it's easy. Get some hot water -- we use the turkey-flavored broth from boiling up the turkey neck and giblets (which are fed to mother and brother-the-younger) -- and pour it in the roasting pan. Use between two (small turkey) and three (big turkey) cups of water. It's not important to be exact, here. If you measure, I will laugh at you. Take your fork and scuff all the dark-n-crispy dripping bits up. Flaky bits of dried, cooked blood, those are good too. Any crispy anythings on the roasting pan, you want them to come loose. DO NOT worry about "lumps" or "bits" because they'll all dissolve in the gravy process anyway. The goal here is to make sure that you get all the crispy parts and all the carmelized parts because THAT IS WHERE THE FLAVOR IS. Also do not worry about fat content. Gravy needs fat. It'll be fine.
3. Add deglazed stuff to turkey juices. (An enormous frying pan, I mean. Big. Huge. Suitable to hold six to eight cups of gravy. Honestly, if you're making gravy, there is no point in doing things halfway.)
4. Add flour to your drippings in the frying pan. The easiest way to do this is a whitewash. Take about 1/4 cup of flour (that's four tablespoons) and put it in a pint jar about half full of cold water. Put lid on, shake vigorously. Allow to stand for like five minutes. (You can do this step as early as the night before and just let it be in the fridge until gravy time.) The "let it stand" part is important because it helps make the lumps go away. Honest. This mix of flour and water is your whitewash. Now, stirring the juices with the fork (one hand), use other hand to pour in a thin stream of whitewash. KEEP STIRRING in a little whisk motion to evenly distribute the flour stuff. If you get lumps, well, don't worry about it too much.
5. Cook this until it boils, stirring it to keep the flour thickener from clumping and getting all yuck on the bottom of the pan. It should thicken up some. If it hasn't thickened and it has boiled for at least two minutes, you can add some more whitewash. Mix up as before, stir in as before. (Stop pouring before you get to the lumps. The thin stream helps you not pour in the lumps.)
NOTE: The thickening power of flour is time-delayed. You need to be patient and give it a chance to work. DO NOT assume that it isn't working and instantly add more. Let it boil a minute or two before giving up on it.
Also NOTE: Flour gravy HAS to be boiled for about three or four minutes *after it thickens up* to kill the raw flour flavor in it. It also goes through a slight color change when the flour flavor goes away, so you can look for that, too. The color gets... richer and deeper, kind of.
Final NOTE: Flour gravy thickens up as it cools. You want it a wee bit runnier at the boil than you want it to be when you're eating it.
When your gravy is the right thickness, add salt and pepper. If you engaged in brining your turkey, TASTE THE GRAVY BEFORE ADDING SALT!! I am not sure that it is possible to make edible gravy with a brined bird -- every time I've ever had the gravy from one, it's been way too damn salty. Gravy needs salt and pepper to taste okay. It's like soup in the amounts that it requires. When I make it, gravy always needs more pepper than I think it does.
Help! My gravy is too thick!! Add more liquid. Hopefully you have some more broth from cooking up the neck-n-giblets, but if not, you can also add water.
Help! My gravy is too thin! Add another shot of whitewash and boil it some more.
Help! My gravy tastes flat! Check salt and pepper levels. If you cooked an entire whole turkey of fourteen pounds or more, you should be fine as far as drippings go. A fourteen pound turkey will easily make six cups of gravy.
Help! My gravy is too salty! Congratulations! You now have a great story for next year's Thanksgiving on how you fucked up the gravy this year.
Help! My gravy is all gone! Christmas is right around the corner. You can wait a month.
Help! You won't believe what Their Darleen said about Our Shawn while passing the cranberry orange! Uhm. Have another glass of wine and try to play nice with each other. Maybe Darleen's famous Sweet Potato Casserole With Pineapples and Marshmallows didn't come out right this year and she's stressing. Maybe Our Shawn (married four times, divorced three and a half) needs to start thinking with the big head for a change. Seriously, have you tried the Riesling? It's quite good, nice and fruity but not overpowering...
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Date: 2006-11-25 11:52 pm (UTC)I learned All About Pie Crust this
weekendThanksgiving. Apparently our family Way of Pie is the Way of the Convenient. It was ridiculously simple and easy. Details when I get around to email.