Roast Chicken Carcass Gravy

One chicken carcass has more gravy in it than most people realise. The trick is to break it up small and give it a second blast in the oven, because a picked over roast bird has already lost a lot of its surface colour. Three hours of gentle simmering and you have a stock worth building on.

Ingredients

Makes about 500ml, enough for six plates

• 1 roast chicken carcass plus any wing tips, skin and jelly from the plate
• 1 large onion skin on, quartered
• 1 medium carrot roughly chopped
• 1 stick celery
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 sprigs parsley stalks and all
• 6 black peppercorns
• 1.5 litres (2.5 pints) cold water
• 30g (1oz) butter
• 25g (1oz) plain flour
• 1 tsp cider vinegar
• salt and white pepper

Kit

• Roasting tin
• Large saucepan
• Fine sieve
• Whisk

Method

1. Heat the oven to 200C fan (220C conventional, gas 7). Snap or cut the carcass into pieces no bigger than your palm, so more cut bone and cartilage is exposed. Spread it in a roasting tin with the onion, carrot and celery.

2. Roast for 30 minutes until the bones are a deep golden brown and the onion edges have caught. If your carcass came off a pale bird, give it another 10 minutes. Colour here is flavour later.

3. Scrape the lot into a saucepan. Splash a little water into the hot tin, scrape up the sticky brown residue and add that too.

4. Pour over 1.5 litres of cold water so the bones are covered by a couple of centimetres. Bring slowly to a simmer, skimming the beige foam off as it collects. Add the bay, parsley stalks and peppercorns once it is clear.

5. Keep it at a lazy simmer, uncovered, for 2.5 to 3 hours. Chicken bones give up everything they have in that time. Boiling it harder will not speed this up, it will just make it cloudy and taste stewed.

6. Strain through a fine sieve into a jug and leave to stand for 10 minutes, then spoon the clear fat off the surface. Keep two tablespoons of that fat back if you like, it is worth using in the roux.

7. Melt the butter in the pan, stir in the flour and cook the roux over medium heat for 2 minutes until it smells biscuity and turns the colour of pale sand. Do not let it darken much, chicken gravy wants a blond roux.

8. Pour the hot stock in a third at a time, whisking flat between each addition. Simmer for 5 minutes, add the cider vinegar to lift it, then season with salt and white pepper and serve.

Tips worth knowing

• Save the jelly from under a roast chicken in the fridge. It is concentrated stock and it goes straight in.
• Chicken bones do not need or want a full day. Past four hours the stock starts tasting flat and slightly chalky.
• White pepper instead of black keeps the gravy looking clean and gives a rounder heat that suits poultry.
• Freeze carcasses as you get them and make a double batch from two at once. Two birds in the same pot gives a noticeably stronger stock.

Keeping and reheating

Keeps four days in the fridge and freezes for three months. Reheat gently and whisk, because a flour thickened chicken gravy can split its surface if you blast it.

Questions people ask