Christmas Dinner Vegetarian Gravy

The vegetarian at a Christmas table is usually handed a jug of something beige and apologetic. This is not that. Roasting the vegetables until they are properly scorched gives you the same caramelised base a roasting tin gives a meat gravy, and Marmite and mushroom do the umami heavy lifting. Everyone else will want some too, so make more than you think.

Ingredients

Makes about 900ml, enough for eight plates

• 2 onions skin on, quartered
• 2 carrots halved lengthways
• 2 sticks celery cut into chunks
• 1 leek green part included, washed and chunked
• 250g (9oz) chestnut mushrooms halved
• 1 head garlic halved across the middle
• 3 tbsp rapeseed oil
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 1.2 litres (2 pints) vegetable stock a strong one
• 150ml (5fl oz) red wine
• 2 tsp Marmite
• 50g (1 3/4oz) butter
• 50g (1 3/4oz) plain flour
• 2 sprigs rosemary
• sea salt and black pepper

Kit

• Large roasting tin
• Saucepan
• Whisk
• Fine sieve

Method

1. Heat the oven to 220C (200C fan, gas 7). Toss the onions, carrots, celery, leek, mushrooms and garlic with the oil in a big roasting tin, spreading them in a single layer. Crowding is the enemy here, use two tins if you need to.

2. Roast for fifty minutes, turning twice, until the edges are genuinely blackened in places and the onions have gone sticky. Pale roasted vegetables give you a pale gravy, so be braver than feels sensible. Smear the tomato puree over everything for the last ten minutes.

3. Set the tin over two hob rings on a medium heat, pour in the wine and let it bubble while you scrape the base clean with a wooden spoon. Everything welded to the tin is flavour and it needs to come off.

4. Tip the contents of the tin into a saucepan with the stock and rosemary, bring to a simmer and cook uncovered for twenty five minutes. Squeeze the soft garlic out of its skins into the pan and discard the papery shells.

5. Strain through a fine sieve into a jug, pressing the vegetables firmly with a ladle to get every bit of liquid and a little pulp through. You should have around a litre. Stir the Marmite into the hot liquid until it dissolves.

6. Melt the butter in the rinsed pan, whisk in the flour and cook for two minutes until it smells nutty and turns the colour of light caramel. Pour the hot vegetable liquid in a ladleful at a time, whisking each addition smooth.

7. Simmer for eight minutes until it coats the back of a spoon. Taste before salting, because Marmite and stock cubes between them carry a lot of salt. Finish with plenty of black pepper and a splash more wine if it needs sharpening.

Tips worth knowing

• Roast the vegetables at the same time as everything else on Christmas Eve, then strain and chill the liquid. On the day the gravy is a ten minute job with a roux.
• Do not use a stock cube dissolved in a litre of water and call it stock. Use two cubes, or a fresh stock pot, or the liquid from steaming the sprouts and carrots. Weak stock is why vegetarian gravy has a bad name.
• A tablespoon of soy sauce alongside the Marmite adds a different kind of savoury note. They are not the same thing and they stack.
• If it tastes flat after all that, it needs acid. Red wine vinegar, half a teaspoon at a time, works better than more salt.

Keeping and reheating

Cool quickly in a shallow tray, then keep for four days in the fridge or three months in the freezer. It reheats better than most meat gravies because there is less fat in it to split. Bring it to a full boil and whisk it smooth before serving.

Questions people ask