Coffee and Cocoa Beef Gravy

Coffee and cocoa are both bitter, and a small amount of the right bitterness makes beef taste more like itself. This is a trick borrowed from chilli and from American barbecue, dialled right down. Nobody at the table will guess what is in it. It belongs with roast beef, brisket, short ribs or a bowl of beef stew that needs waking up.

Ingredients

Makes about 550ml, enough for six plates

• 3 tbsp fat from the beef roasting tin or beef dripping if you are working in a pan
• 2 tbsp (30g) plain flour
• 700ml (1¼ pints) hot beef stock
• 1 tsp instant espresso powder level, not granules from a big jar of mild instant
• 1 tsp cocoa powder unsweetened, sieved
• 1 tsp dark brown sugar
• 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
• salt and black pepper to taste

Kit

• Roasting tin
• Balloon whisk
• Sieve
• Measuring jug

Method

1. Lift the beef out of the tin and leave it to rest. Tip off all but about three tablespoons of fat, keeping every scrap of browned sediment stuck to the bottom.

2. Put the tin over two burners on a medium heat. Scatter in the flour and stir it into the fat with a whisk, scraping the base as you go. Cook for a minute and a half until it turns the colour of a digestive biscuit and stops smelling raw.

3. Add a ladleful of hot stock and whisk hard. Everything will seize and then loosen. Keep scraping the base of the tin, that dark sediment is most of the flavour.

4. Pour in the rest of the stock in two goes, whisking each time until smooth, then bring the lot to a simmer.

5. Put the espresso powder, cocoa and sugar in a mug, sieve them if they look lumpy, and mix in three tablespoons of the hot gravy to make a smooth dark paste. Whisk that back into the tin.

6. Simmer for six to eight minutes, stirring, until the gravy has thickened enough to coat a spoon. The cocoa needs this time to lose its powdery edge and settle into the background.

7. Take it off the heat, stir in the vinegar and season with salt and plenty of pepper. Taste properly. If you can identify the coffee, add a splash more stock. It should read as dark and roasted, not as a flat white.

8. Pour it through a sieve into a warmed jug and add any juices that have run out of the resting beef.

Tips worth knowing

• One teaspoon of each per 700ml is the ceiling. Two teaspoons of espresso powder takes the gravy from savoury to sour and slightly ashy, and you cannot get it back out.
• Use proper instant espresso powder rather than coffee granules. It dissolves cleanly and has less of the acrid note that cheap instant coffee brings.
• The teaspoon of sugar and the vinegar are not decoration. Bitterness needs something sweet on one side and something sharp on the other or it just sits there.
• If you have no espresso powder, a tablespoon of very strong brewed black coffee does the same job, but reduce the stock by the same amount.

Keeping and reheating

Keeps three days in the fridge and freezes for three months. The bitterness mellows overnight, which some people prefer. Reheat gently with a splash of stock and taste again before serving, it often wants a little more vinegar the second day.

Questions people ask