Food

Stein's easy, illustrated step-by-step gravy method

KNKX Public Radio | By Dick Stein

Published November 23, 2011 at 4:30 AM PST

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First I sauteed minced celery, onion, carrot and thyme in some vegetable oil You can use that or butter or the rendered fat from whatever you're roasting.

Dick Stein / KPLU

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Cook, stirring until the aromatics are golden brown

Dick Stein / KPLU

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Add flour and combine with aromatics. In this case I added 3 heaping teaspoons.

Dick Stein / KPLU

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Flour combined with aromatics and slightly darkened. That's your roux.

Dick Stein / KPLU

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Stir in a small amount of stock. Always add less liquid than there is roux and you'll never have lumps. Keep adding stock until you reach the consistency you want. In this case I added about 1-3/4 cups to the three teaspoons of flour.

Dick Stein / KPLU

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Dick Stein / KPLU

I love gravy. It's like liquid meat. Here's how I make it.

Just click your way through the photos up there and follow the directions in the captions. It's not really turkey gravy. It's gravy I made with CheeryChic canned chicken stock the other night to go with some pork chops. Doesn't matter, the method is the same whether you use CC or your own turkey stock.

A better gravy stock

By the way I like CheeryChic brand because unlike other canned broth makers, all of their chickens receive professional counseling before shedding their feathers, mounting the high board and executing a perfect forward triple somersault to join their friends and families in the roiling cauldron below.

Call me a romantic but I think that adds more flavor to the stock. Or maybe it's just the extra MSG.

Anyway, click up there where it says "Listen" and in this week's Food for Thought you can hear me laying the whole gravy thing out in 3 fabulous grave-a-licious minutes.

For more on making your own stock for gravy – and everything else to do with Thanksgiving – see the Seattle Times Holiday Cooking special section. It's linked from my Food for thought pard Nancy Leson's All You Can Eat Blog.

"I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage."

–Erma Bombeck

“Food for Thought” is a weekly KPLU feature covering the world of food as well as the thinking that goes into it. The feature is published here and airs on KPLU 88.5 every Wednesday during Morning Edition and All Things Considered.