Vegan Bisto Style Gravy from Scratch

Gravy granules taste the way they do because of toasted starch, caramel colour, onion and yeast extract. Once you know that, you can build the same thing in a pan without the packet. Toasting the flour dry until it smells like digestive biscuits is the step that makes it taste right rather than just brown.

Ingredients

Makes about 500ml, four servings

• 3 tbsp (45g) plain flour
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 tsp onion granules
• 1/2 tsp garlic granules
• 600ml (1 pint) hot vegetable stock
• 1 1/2 tsp yeast extract
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 tsp black treacle for colour and a bitter edge
• 1/2 tsp ground white pepper
• 1/2 tsp caster sugar

Kit

• Dry frying pan
• Saucepan
• Whisk

Method

1. Put the flour in a dry frying pan over a medium heat and stir it constantly for four to six minutes. It will go from white to cream to a light brown, and it will smell like digestive biscuits. That toasted smell is what gives this gravy its familiar flavour.

2. Tip the toasted flour straight out onto a plate to stop it cooking further. It goes from brown to burnt very fast if you leave it in a hot pan.

3. Heat the oil in a saucepan over a medium heat, add the onion granules and garlic granules and stir for 30 seconds until they smell sweet and toasty.

4. Whisk the toasted flour into the oil to make a paste and cook it for one minute. It will already be much darker than an ordinary roux, so it needs less time.

5. Add the hot stock a third at a time, whisking hard between each addition. Because the flour is toasted its thickening power is a little lower, so it may take a minute to come together.

6. Bring to a simmer and cook for six to eight minutes, whisking now and then, until it is smooth and glossy and coats the back of a spoon.

7. Stir in the yeast extract, soy sauce, treacle, sugar and white pepper. Taste and adjust. It should be dark, salty, faintly sweet and unmistakably like the gravy off a school dinner tray, but better.

Tips worth knowing

• Watch the flour like a hawk. It takes five minutes to toast and about twenty seconds to burn.
• Toasted flour thickens less than raw flour, which is why the quantity here is higher than in a normal roux gravy.
• White pepper rather than black is part of what makes this taste like the packet version. It is a specific, slightly musty heat.
• Toast a big batch of flour at once and keep it in a jar. It will sit happily in the cupboard for months and cuts this gravy down to ten minutes.

Keeping and reheating

Four days in the fridge and three months in the freezer. It reheats better than most flour gravies because the flour is already fully cooked.

Questions people ask