Vegetarian Roast Dinner Gravy

This is the one to make when there is no meat tin to work from but you still want a gravy that stands up to roast potatoes and stuffing. The depth comes from roasting the vegetables until their edges catch, then cooking tomato puree in the pan until it turns brick red and smells sweet rather than sharp. Butter takes it over the line, which makes it vegetarian rather than vegan.

Ingredients

Makes about 650ml, enough for a family roast

• 2 onions, quartered with the skins left on
• 2 carrots, cut into chunks
• 2 sticks celery, cut into chunks
• 1 leek, thickly sliced and washed
• 1 bulb garlic, halved across the middle
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 40g (1 1/2oz) butter
• 3 tbsp (45g) plain flour
• 1 litre (1 3/4 pints) hot vegetable stock
• 2 tsp Henderson's Relish vegetarian and vegan, unlike Worcestershire sauce
• 2 bay leaves

Kit

• Roasting tin
• Saucepan
• Sieve
• Whisk

Method

1. Heat the oven to 220C, 200C fan, gas 7. Toss the onions, carrots, celery, leek and garlic with the olive oil in a roasting tin and spread them out so they are not sitting on top of each other.

2. Roast for 35 to 40 minutes, turning once, until the edges are properly browned and the onion skins have gone dark. You want colour, not char. Those brown edges are where the savoury flavour is coming from.

3. Take the tin out, dot the tomato puree over the hot vegetables and put it back in the oven for five minutes. It will darken from bright red to brick red and lose its raw tinny smell.

4. Scrape everything into a saucepan, pour a ladle of the hot stock into the empty roasting tin and scrub the base with a wooden spoon to lift the stuck on bits. Add that to the pan with the rest of the stock and the bay leaves.

5. Simmer for 25 minutes with the lid off, so it reduces by about a quarter and the vegetables give up their flavour. Then strain it through a sieve into a jug, pressing the vegetables hard with the back of a ladle to get every drop out.

6. Wipe the pan out, melt the butter in it over a medium heat, whisk in the flour and cook the roux for two to three minutes until it smells nutty and turns the colour of sand.

7. Pour the strained stock in bit by bit, whisking between each addition so it stays smooth, then simmer for five minutes until it thickens. Stir in the Henderson's Relish, taste and season.

Tips worth knowing

• Leaving the onion skins on adds colour to the finished gravy. You are straining it all out anyway.
• Worcestershire sauce contains anchovies, so it is not vegetarian. Henderson's Relish is the British swap and tastes right in exactly this sort of gravy.
• If you are roasting vegetables for the dinner anyway, do this lot in the same oven at the same time and you have lost nothing but the tin.
• Press the strained vegetables hard. There is a good ladleful of concentrated flavour still trapped in them.

Keeping and reheating

Cools and keeps for four days in the fridge and freezes for three months. Freeze it in a flat bag so it thaws in minutes under a warm tap.

Questions people ask