Non-Alcoholic Red Wine Style Gravy

Simply leaving the wine out of a red wine gravy gives you a flat brown gravy and everybody notices. Red wine brings three things: fruit, acidity and tannin. Grape juice covers the fruit, vinegar covers the acidity, and strong black tea covers the tannin, which is the bit almost every alcohol free recipe forgets. Put all three in and it works.

Ingredients

Makes about 550ml, enough for six plates

• 1 strong black teabag an ordinary builder's tea bag is fine
• 150ml (5fl oz) boiling water
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 shallots, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 2 tbsp (30g) plain flour
• 250ml (9fl oz) red grape juice unsweetened, the darker the better
• 450ml (16fl oz) hot vegetable stock
• 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 sprigs thyme
• salt and black pepper

Kit

• Heavy saucepan
• Whisk
• Small jug

Method

1. Steep the teabag in the boiling water for four minutes, then squeeze it out and set the tea aside. Do not brew it longer than that or the tannin turns bitter rather than drying.

2. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan and cook the shallots over a medium heat for six minutes until soft and golden at the edges.

3. Stir in the tomato puree and fry it for two minutes until it darkens from bright red to brick. This is where the colour and a good chunk of the savoury depth come from.

4. Add the flour and cook for two minutes, then pour in the grape juice in stages, whisking smooth.

5. Add the thyme and boil the grape juice for six or seven minutes until reduced by half. Grape juice is much sweeter than wine so this step is about concentrating the fruit and cooking off the raw juicy edge.

6. Pour in the tea and the hot vegetable stock, then simmer for twelve minutes until the gravy thickens and coats a spoon.

7. Stir in the soy sauce and the red wine vinegar. Taste it now. It should be savoury with a dry finish, and if it still reads sweet add another two teaspoons of vinegar rather than salt.

8. Remove the thyme, season and serve. It is indistinguishable from the alcoholic version to most people, which is the whole point.

Tips worth knowing

• The tea is the ingredient people leave out and it is the one that matters most. Tannin is what gives a red wine gravy its dry, grippy finish, and juice alone cannot supply it.
• Use unsweetened grape juice, not a grape drink or a juice blend. Added sugar makes the reduction cloying.
• Alcohol free red wine works instead of the grape juice and tea combined, and it is very good now. Use 350ml and reduce it by half in the same way.
• For a gluten free version, thicken with 2 tbsp of cornflour slaked in cold water instead of the flour, add it at the end, and use tamari instead of soy sauce.

Keeping and reheating

Five days in the fridge, three months in the freezer. Reheat with a splash of stock and taste for vinegar again, since the acidity softens with time in the fridge.

Questions people ask