Instant Gravy with Pan Scrapings

This is less a recipe than a habit worth getting into. Any time you fry a chop, a steak, a chicken thigh or a couple of burgers, there is browned residue on the base of the pan that is worth more than most of what goes into a gravy from scratch. Granules do the thickening. All you do is get the brown off the pan and into the liquid.

Ingredients

Makes about 250ml, enough for two plates

• 1 frying pan with browned residue in it after cooking chops, steak, chicken or burgers
• 250ml (9fl oz) boiling water or hot stock
• 2 tbsp gravy granules
• 1 tsp brown sauce, ketchup or redcurrant jelly whichever is open
• 10g (⅓oz) cold butter optional but worth it
• black pepper to taste

Kit

• The frying pan you just cooked in
• Wooden spoon
• Small whisk
• Kettle

Method

1. Lift the meat out of the pan onto a warm plate to rest and turn the heat down to medium. Pour off any fat that is genuinely pooling, but leave the pan looking oily rather than dry.

2. Have a proper look at what is stuck on. Dark brown and glossy is exactly what you want. Black and matte is burnt, and if a good third of the pan looks like that then wipe it out and start with fresh stock instead, because burnt residue makes bitter gravy.

3. Pour in about a third of the boiling water. It will hiss and steam violently for a few seconds. Immediately start scraping the base with a wooden spoon, working across the whole pan, until every stuck on bit has lifted into the liquid and the base is clean metal again.

4. Add the rest of the water, then sprinkle in the granules while whisking. They thicken in about ten seconds, so the whisk needs to be moving before they land.

5. Let it bubble for a minute, still whisking now and then, and it will darken and gloss up.

6. Off the heat, stir in the brown sauce or jelly and drop in the cold butter, swirling the pan until it disappears. Pepper it, then tip in any juices from under the resting meat and pour straight onto the plate.

7. If the residue was heavy and the gravy has come out too intense, let it down with a splash more hot water. Concentrated pan gravy is a good problem to have.

Tips worth knowing

• Deglaze while the pan is still hot. Once it cools the residue goes hard and clings, and you will spend twice as long scraping for half the flavour.
• A stainless steel or cast iron pan gives you far more browned residue than a non stick one. Non stick works, there is just less to scrape.
• Do not tip wine or spirits straight into a very hot pan on a gas hob without taking it off the flame first. Water is safer and does almost the same job.
• Granules already contain salt, colouring and thickener, so nothing else needs adding except the acid or sweetness at the end.

Keeping and reheating

Best eaten straight away, this is a pour it now gravy. It will keep two days in the fridge if you have made too much. Do not freeze, because the small quantity reheats unevenly.

Questions people ask