Mulled Wine Christmas Gravy

This sounds like a gimmick and it is not. The spices in mulled wine are the same ones that belong with roast goose and Christmas ham, and infusing them into the wine before it goes into the gravy gives a warm, aromatic result. The trick is restraint with the spice and keeping it savoury with plenty of stock and salt.

Ingredients

Makes about 700ml, enough for eight plates

• 400ml (14fl oz) red wine a fruity Merlot or Garnacha
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 3 cloves no more
• 2 star anise
• 1 strip orange peel plus the juice of half the orange
• 4 tbsp fat and juices from the roasting tin
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 tbsp (45g) plain flour
• 800ml (1½ pints) hot beef or turkey stock
• 1 tbsp redcurrant jelly
• 2 tsp red wine vinegar
• salt and black pepper

Kit

• Small saucepan
• Roasting tin
• Whisk
• Sieve

Method

1. Put the wine, cinnamon, cloves, star anise and orange peel in a small saucepan. Bring to a bare simmer and hold it there for ten minutes, then take it off the heat and leave it to infuse for a further ten. Do not boil it hard yet, gentle heat draws the spice out without stewing it.

2. Strain the spiced wine and return it to the pan. Now boil it hard for six to eight minutes until reduced by half and syrupy.

3. Meanwhile, set the roasting tin over a medium heat with four tablespoons of fat and the browned juices. Cook the onion for eight minutes until soft and golden.

4. Stir in the flour and cook for two full minutes, scraping the base of the tin clean.

5. Pour the reduced spiced wine into the tin and whisk until smooth. It will thicken up immediately and look alarming, which is normal.

6. Add the hot stock a ladle at a time, whisking each one in, then simmer for fifteen minutes until the gravy is glossy and thick enough to coat a spoon.

7. Stir in the redcurrant jelly and the orange juice. Taste it. It should read as a savoury gravy with a warm spiced edge, not as a hot punch.

8. Add the vinegar, season generously with salt and pepper and strain into a warm jug. Salt is what keeps this on the savoury side of the line, so do not be timid with it.

Tips worth knowing

• Three cloves is not a typo. Cloves are enormously powerful and six will make the gravy taste like a dentist's waiting room.
• Do not use a shop bought mulled wine or a mulling sachet. Both are heavily sweetened and you will not be able to pull the gravy back to savoury.
• For a non-alcoholic version, infuse the same spices into 400ml of red grape juice mixed with 100ml of strong black tea, then reduce by half and add 1 tbsp of red wine vinegar. The tea supplies the tannin that the wine would have brought.
• Make the spiced wine reduction days ahead and keep it in a jar in the fridge. On Christmas Day it turns a twenty minute job into a five minute one.

Keeping and reheating

Five days in the fridge and three months in the freezer, which makes it a good make ahead for the big day. The spice mellows on standing, so taste and adjust the vinegar and salt after reheating.

Questions people ask