Stock, and how much it actually matters

Homemade, shop bought fresh, cubes, bouillon or pods. What each one does to a gravy and when the difference is worth the effort.

Why stock is the whole game

In a gravy with three ingredients, the one you did not make yourself is doing most of the talking. Homemade stock brings gelatine, which is what gives a gravy body and that lip sticking quality. Cubes bring salt and colour and very little else.

That does not make cubes wrong. It means you have to build the missing bits back in.

The options, honestly ranked

• Homemade bone stock: best by a mile, free if you save carcasses, needs hours.
• Fresh chilled stock from the supermarket: genuinely good, expensive, usually worth it at Christmas.
• Bouillon powder or paste: better than cubes, easier to control the strength, keeps for ages.
• Stock cubes: fine, salty, mostly seasoning. Use less water than the packet says and season at the end.
• Stock pots and jellies: somewhere between a cube and a paste, more savoury, still salty.

Making a cube taste like stock

Add gelatine and umami, since those are the two things missing. A tablespoon of powdered gelatine per 500ml gives you the body. A teaspoon of Marmite, soy or mushroom ketchup gives you depth. A knob of butter whisked in at the end gives you the shine.

Simmering the stock with a browned onion, a bay leaf and a few peppercorns for ten minutes while you do something else is the cheapest upgrade there is.

Never throw a carcass away

A roast chicken carcass, covered with water and simmered for three hours with an onion, a carrot and a bay leaf, makes about a litre of stock that costs nothing. Freeze it flat in bags and you have proper gravy on a Tuesday.

The same goes for the bones off a leg of lamb, a ham hock, and the trimmings from a beef joint. Roast them first if you want a dark gravy, use them raw if you want a pale one.