Store Cupboard Gravy

This is the one for the week before payday, or the night you get home and find the fridge has nothing in it but a lightbulb. Every ingredient here keeps for months. It leans hard on tomato puree, yeast extract and onion granules to fake the flavours you would normally get from a pan and an onion, and it is honestly better than it has any right to be.

Ingredients

Makes about 450ml, enough for four plates

• 2 tbsp vegetable or rapeseed oil oil keeps far better than butter in a cupboard, which is the point of this one
• 2 tbsp (25g) plain flour
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 tsp onion granules or onion powder
• ½ tsp garlic granules
• 1 tsp yeast extract Marmite or similar
• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 500ml (18fl oz) boiling water
• ½ tsp caster sugar
• black pepper to taste

Kit

• Small saucepan
• Whisk
• Kettle

Method

1. Boil the kettle. Put the yeast extract, soy sauce and sugar into a measuring jug and pour on 500ml of boiling water. Stir until the yeast extract has completely dissolved, which takes longer than you think. Any undissolved lumps will show up as bitter spots later.

2. Heat the oil in a small saucepan over a medium heat. Add the tomato puree, onion granules and garlic granules and stir them into the oil.

3. Cook this paste for a minute, stirring constantly. It will darken from bright red to brick and start smelling toasty rather than raw. Do not let it catch, dried alliums burn quickly and go bitter.

4. Add the flour and stir it in. It will look like wet sand and there will not be much loose oil left. Keep it moving for another minute over the heat.

5. Pour in a third of the hot liquid and whisk hard until smooth, then add the rest in two goes, whisking each time.

6. Simmer for four minutes, stirring occasionally so it does not stick at the base. It will darken further as it cooks and should end up glossy and pourable.

7. Taste and finish with plenty of black pepper. Yeast extract and soy are both salty, so it will very rarely need salt. If it tastes a bit thin, another quarter teaspoon of yeast extract does more than more salt will.

Tips worth knowing

• Dissolve the yeast extract in the hot water in the jug rather than dropping it into the pan. It is stubborn stuff and undissolved blobs taste harsh.
• Onion granules are not the same as onion salt, which is mostly salt. Check the jar, because using onion salt here will wreck the seasoning.
• If the cupboard runs to a bay leaf or a few peppercorns, drop them in the jug with the hot water while you make the roux. Five minutes of steeping is not nothing.
• A quarter teaspoon of instant coffee granules sounds mad but it adds real bitterness and colour that reads as roasted. Go carefully.

Keeping and reheating

Four days in the fridge because there is nothing fresh in it. Freezes for three months. Reheat in a pan with a splash of water and whisk as it comes back to a simmer.

Questions people ask