kitchen skills
Building Better Gravy BY JASON ROSS Culinary Instructor Le Cordon Bleu, Minnesota
T
he gravy can enhance a great turkey dinner, and even help save a bird that stayed a little too long in the oven. Here are the steps that go into making great gravy. Build flavor and transform brown bits left at the bottom of the turkey-roasting pan into decadent sauce. Learn to use fundamentals of cooking and maybe even turn gravy from forgotten sauceboat to star of the show.
TRICKS of the TRADE: Use up scraps if you have them. Before roasting pans there were bones. Similar to a roasting rack, bones and scraps help elevate a roast above the pan. In addition, they add flavor and browning to the gravy. If you have any scraps, turkey necks, wing tips, or poultry left in the freezer, add them to the roasting pan around the bird or under the rack. Any extra bones or meat added to the pan will increase the amount of browned bits in the pan, and strengthen the flavor of the finished gravy. Use them if you have them. Roux tips. 4 ounces of roux (that is 2 tablespoons of butter and a little less than ½ cup of flour) will thicken 1 quart of liquid gravy. The more the roux browns the more flavorful but the less thickening power. Conversely, the less the roux browns the stronger the thickening power.
TURKEY GRAVY (RECIPE PAGE 24)
22 real food winter 2013