How to Make Turkey or Chicken Gravy

There are many ways to make a good gravy from the drippings of your turkey, chicken, roast beef, or other slow roasting meat.  Everyone seems to have their own special touch on how to make one, and below is how I do mine.   I'll do my best to be precise with proportions, but I warn you now, a good gravy is made as much by feel as by recipe.  So be willing to adjust as need be!

Use a metal roasting pan -- something that you can put over a heated stove burner later in the process.  Start by building a bed of veggies for your bird -- I like to cut up carrots, onions, celery and garlic into big chunks, and cover the bottom of my roasting pan with them.  Sprinkle with just a little salt, so the veggies will release their juices in the pan, and tuck a few sprigs of rosemary, thyme and/or sage into the veggies as well.  You can also add the neck and giblets that come with the bird to the veggies, but do not add the liver if that is in the carcass, as it will burn and turn the gravy bitter.

Place your bird on top of the bed of veggies and roast as you normally would, including adding a bit of water as the bird cooks if there aren't sufficient juices flowing from the meat.

When you meat is fully cooked, remove the carcass to a platter or cutting board and cover with foil to keep it warm and let it rest.

Now the gravy fun begins!

First, remove all the veggies from the pan (if you wanted, you could puree them with some chicken or veggie stock and have a yummy soup!).  There should be scraps of skin and veggies still clinging to the roasting pan and this is good -- it will form the base of your gravy.

Then see what kind of drippings you have -- if there are a lot, add about the same amount of chicken, turkey, veggie broth or even water to the drippings and turn the heat up pretty high.  If there aren't too many, add at least twice as much liquid as you have drippings, and also turn up the heat.  Using a wooden spoon or some sort of spatula, start scraping up all the pieces of cooked veggie, skin, and meat that are clinging to roasting pan, until everything is integrated into the liquid.

When this process is done, pass all the drippings and water thru a sieve, into a sauce pan and bring it to a slow boil.

Now make a mixture of 2 parts water to one part Wondra Flour:  http://www.goldmedalflour.com/ourflourstory/ourflour/wondraflour.  Stir till the Wondra is thoroughly dissolved.  You should have about 1/5 as much of this mixture as you have gravy in your sauce pan.   Add it to the hot liquid, and whisk briskly so that no lumps form.

Then simmer the gravy slowly until it starts to thicken, whisking occasionally to keep it emulsified.  If the gravy does not look as dark and rich as you'd like, you can add a few drops of Kitchen Bouquet,http://www.cooksinfo.com/kitchen-bouquet, to make it richer.  Add only a few drops at a time because a little goes a long way.

As your gravy continues to cook, if it doesn't thicken enough, add some more Wondra dissolved in water until you reach the right consistency.

Finally, right before serving, taste for seasoning and if it needs more salt, add some.  I generally don't add pepper to gravy as not everyone cares for it, but you could add some if desired.

I know this sounds complicated, but it's actually pretty easy -- once you do it one or two times, it becomes second nature.   So go ahead and make your own gravy -- you'll be happy you did!