How to make gravy, properly

The five things every gravy has in common, and the order you do them in. Learn this once and you can improvise the rest.

What gravy actually is

Strip away the arguments and every gravy is the same four things: a fat, a thickener, a liquid and a seasoning. Everything else is decoration. Once you can see those four parts in any recipe you stop following instructions blindly and start cooking.

The fat is usually what came out of the meat, or butter, or oil. The thickener is flour, cornflour, or the gravy reducing until it thickens itself. The liquid is stock, wine, beer, milk, or the water you boiled the veg in. The seasoning is salt, pepper and something with a bit of edge to it.

The order matters more than the recipe

Fat first, gently heated. Thickener in second and cooked in the fat for a minute or two, because raw flour tastes of raw flour and no amount of stock hides it. Liquid third, added hot and a splash at a time at the start so the flour has a chance to swell without clumping. Seasoning last, once the gravy has reduced and you finally know how salty it is.

Get that order wrong and you get lumps, a floury aftertaste, or gravy so salty it is only fit for the bin. Get it right and the rest is just choosing what to put in it.

How thick is right

Proper gravy coats the back of a spoon and then slides off it slowly. Drag a finger through it and the line should hold for a second before closing. Too thin and it runs off the plate into a puddle. Too thick and it sits on the meat like wallpaper paste.

As a starting ratio, 25g of flour and 25g of fat to 500ml of liquid gives a pouring gravy. Push the flour to 40g and you get something closer to pie filling. Drop it to 15g and you get a thin jus you can still see the plate through.

Seasoning is not just salt

Salt makes a gravy taste of more of itself, but it does not fix a flat gravy. Flatness usually wants acid or umami rather than salt. A teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, a splash of vinegar, a squeeze of lemon or a spoon of redcurrant jelly will wake it up faster than another pinch of salt.

Pepper goes in at the end, always. Ground pepper cooked for twenty minutes goes dusty and bitter.

• Flat and dull: acid. Vinegar, lemon, wine, a spoon of jelly.
• Thin tasting but salty enough: umami. Marmite, soy, mushroom ketchup, tomato puree cooked out.
• Harsh and sharp: fat or sweetness. A knob of butter or a pinch of sugar.
• Bitter: sweetness and dilution. A pinch of sugar and a splash more stock.

Use the resting juices

Meat carries on releasing juice while it rests, and that liquid is the most concentrated flavour in the kitchen. Tip it into the gravy at the very end, off the heat, and stir it through. It will loosen the gravy slightly, which is usually what you want anyway.

Rest the joint somewhere the juices collect, not on a bare board where they run onto the worktop. A tray with a lip, or the board with the groove round the edge that everyone owns and nobody uses.