Christmas Gravy for Twenty People

Scaling gravy up is where most big Christmases come unstuck. People multiply the stock but not the reduction, end up with six litres of pale liquid, panic, and dump cornflour into it. The way round it is to make far more stock than you need, boil it down hard, and thicken by weight rather than by guesswork. This is written for twenty.

Ingredients

Makes about 4 litres, roughly 200ml a head with a little spare

• 3kg (6lb 10oz) turkey wings and drumsticks chopped through the joints
• 4 tbsp rapeseed oil
• 6 onions quartered, skin on
• 5 carrots thickly sliced
• 5 sticks celery thickly sliced
• 3 tbsp tomato puree
• 500ml (18fl oz) dry white wine
• 7 litres (12 pints) cold water
• 6 bay leaves
• 1 small bunch thyme
• 200g (7oz) butter
• 200g (7oz) plain flour
• 3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tbsp cider vinegar
• sea salt and black pepper

Kit

• Two large roasting tins
• Stockpot of at least 10 litres
• Large heavy pan
• Fine sieve
• Digital scales
• Bain marie or a deep roasting tin

Method

1. Two or three days before, heat the oven to 220C (200C fan, gas 7) and roast the turkey pieces with the oil in two tins for forty five minutes, turning once. Add the vegetables, smear over the tomato puree and give them another twenty five minutes until everything is dark brown. Two tins, not one crammed tin, or it steams.

2. Deglaze both tins on the hob with the wine, scraping the bases clean, and tip everything into the stockpot with the water, bay and thyme. Bring it slowly to a bare simmer, skim, and hold it there for three hours uncovered.

3. Strain into a clean pot. You will have around six litres. Now boil it hard, uncovered, until you are down to 3.6 litres. This takes a good forty minutes in a wide pot and it is the single most important step in the whole recipe. Skipping it is why big batch gravy tastes of nothing.

4. Work out the thickening by weight. The ratio that works is 55g of butter and 55g of flour per litre of stock, so 3.6 litres needs roughly 200g of each. Melt the butter in your largest heavy pan, whisk in the flour and cook it for four minutes over a medium heat until it is the colour of pale toffee. A big roux needs longer than a small one.

5. Add the hot stock a ladleful at a time to begin with, whisking hard, then in larger pours once you have a smooth base. Do not tip four litres of hot stock into a roux at once, you will get lumps you cannot whisk out at this volume.

6. Bring it to a simmer and cook for fifteen minutes, stirring with a long spoon and scraping the base and corners regularly. A pan this deep catches easily and burnt gravy at the bottom flavours the whole batch. Add the Worcestershire sauce and vinegar, season lightly and cool it fast in shallow trays.

7. On the day, reheat it to a rolling boil in two pans rather than one, since a single four litre pan takes forever and scorches. Deglaze the turkey tins with a ladleful and stir that in, along with all the resting juices, then simmer for two minutes.

8. To hold it hot for a long service, sit the pans in a deep roasting tin of just simmering water on the hob, or set the oven to 100C and keep them in there with lids on. It needs to stay above 63C. Fill two or three jugs at a time and top them up rather than putting the whole four litres on the table to go cold.

Tips worth knowing

• Allow 150ml to 200ml a head. Twenty people means three to four litres, and it is always better to have a litre spare in the freezer than to run out at the far end of the table.
• Thicken by weight, not by eye. Fifty five grams each of butter and flour per litre of stock gives a gravy that coats a spoon. Halve it for a thinner jus, go to 70g for a Thanksgiving thickness.
• Skin forms wherever hot gravy meets air. Lay greaseproof paper on the surface in the holding pans, keep lids on, and stir before each refill.
• Warm the jugs. Twenty portions of hot gravy poured into cold china loses ten degrees before it gets near a plate.

Keeping and reheating

Cool in shallow trays no deeper than 3cm and get it into the fridge within ninety minutes. It keeps three days chilled or three months frozen in two litre bags laid flat. Reheat to a rolling boil once only, and never reheat a batch that has already been held hot for hours and then cooled.

Questions people ask