22/04/2021
Apart from growing produce, preparing and cooking them is fun, also adding sauces and gravy really makes a good meal superb.
I’d like to share how I learnt to make really good gravy and more importantly when it’s ready to serve.
This is for novices.
Years ago when my Mother was very sick, my Father showed me how to cook. He said ‘We won’t boil an egg or simple things like that, I’ll show you how to cook a roast diner’ I was 9 years old, it was the best cooking lesson I’ve ever had.
Pan gravy is easy, you remove the roast onto a serving plate and pour off most of the fat into a container, then you add some plain flour and stir to a paste on a high heat, add about 400mls, depending on how big the pan is and how much gravy you want, of vegetable stock, it won’t spit contrary to popular belief but just be careful. You can also use water from boiled vegetables or hot water from a kettle. Hold the pan firmly with one hand wearing an oven glove and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon. nothing seems to happen initially but suddenly after a while the juices start to evaporate and you can draw in the juices from the corners to the centre where you can draw little semi circles with the wooden spoon as it thickens up and eventually those semi circles will join into a complete circle, and that’s when you know the gravy is ready. The other way is to draw zig zag lines across the pan and when the zig zags meet up like a big W shape the gravy is ready. Simple but it works every time.
