Big Batch Sunday Gravy for a Crowd

Cooking for twenty is a logistics problem, not a cooking problem, and gravy is usually the thing that falls over. Making it in advance in a big pot and holding it hot in a slow cooker takes the whole job off the hob at the worst possible moment. The tin juices go in at the end so it still tastes made today.

Ingredients

Makes about 3 litres, enough for twenty plates

• 150g (5oz) beef dripping or butter
• 4 large onions, sliced
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 2 sticks celery, chopped
• 150g (5oz) plain flour
• 3.5 litres (6 pints) hot beef or chicken stock match it to the meat
• 3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tsp Marmite
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 tbsp red wine or malt vinegar
• salt and black pepper

Kit

• Large stockpot
• Slow cooker or large flask
• Balloon whisk
• Large sieve
• Ladle

Method

1. The day before, melt the dripping in your largest pot and cook the onions, carrots and celery over a medium heat for twenty five minutes, stirring regularly. In a big pot this takes far longer than you think, so give it the full time and let the base go brown between stirs.

2. Add the flour all at once and stir it through. Cook for a solid four minutes, working from the base upwards, since a large volume of roux takes considerably longer to cook out than a small one and undercooked flour at this scale is very obvious.

3. Add the hot stock a litre at a time, whisking each addition until completely smooth before the next goes in. Do not be tempted to speed this up, because lumps in three litres of gravy are much harder to fix than lumps in half a litre.

4. Drop in the bay leaves and simmer, uncovered, for thirty minutes, stirring every five minutes and scraping the base with a flat spoon. A pot this deep will catch if you leave it, and burnt gravy at this scale is a genuine disaster.

5. Add the Worcestershire sauce and Marmite, then strain the whole lot through a large sieve into containers, pressing the vegetables. Cool it as fast as you can, ideally by standing the containers in cold water, then refrigerate overnight.

6. On the day, tip the cold gravy into a slow cooker on high about ninety minutes before you serve, whisking once it has melted. From then on it holds itself hot with no hob space and no attention.

7. As each roasting tin comes out of the oven, skim the fat, deglaze the tin with two ladles of the hot gravy, scrape it clean and tip the lot back into the slow cooker. This is what makes a made-ahead gravy taste fresh.

8. Twenty minutes before serving, add the vinegar, taste and season. Ladle into two or three warmed jugs rather than one enormous one, so it gets round the table without anybody waiting.

Tips worth knowing

• Allow 150ml a head for a crowd, not 120ml. People take more when there is a big jug in front of them and there is nothing worse than running out at plate ten.
• Two medium jugs beat one huge one. A full three litre jug is too heavy to pass and it goes cold at the far end of the table.
• Whisk the gravy every twenty minutes while it sits in the slow cooker, since a skin forms and the flour can settle out of a large volume.
• Do the final seasoning on the day, not the day before. Chilled gravy tastes less salty than hot gravy and you will overdo it.

Keeping and reheating

Made ahead it keeps three days in the fridge in sealed containers, or three months in the freezer in two litre bags laid flat. Reheat from frozen in a slow cooker on high for around three hours, whisking occasionally.

Questions people ask