Gravypedia The encyclopaedia of gravy
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🔥 Techniques

Roux, deglazing, reducing, thickening and rescuing a gravy that has gone wrong.

12 pages in this section

Avoiding lumps in gravy
Why they form, how to prevent them, and how to get rid of them
Lumps form when dry starch meets hot liquid and gels on the outside before the inside can hydrate. Prevention is easy; the cure is a sieve.
Deglazing a roasting tin
Getting the best-tasting thing in the kitchen off the bottom of the pan
Deglazing is adding liquid to a hot pan and scraping up the browned residue — the fond — that roasting or frying leaves behind. It is where most of a pan gravy's flavour …
Fixing gravy that is too salty
The hardest fault to fix, and the easiest to avoid
Over-salted gravy can be diluted, bulked or balanced — but not neutralised. The potato trick does not work, and here is why.
Fixing gravy that is too thick
The easy one — but add the right liquid
Thinning an over-thick gravy without washing out the flavour: which liquids to use, and what to do about a gravy that has gone gluey or gloopy.
Fixing gravy that is too thin
Four routes back to a gravy that coats the spoon
How to thicken a gravy that is too thin, ranked by how much time you have and whether flavour or speed matters more.
Getting a darker gravy
Colour from flavour first, from the bottle last
Six ways to make gravy darker, ordered from the ones that also improve flavour to the ones that only change the colour.
Keeping gravy warm
How to have hot gravy at the moment everything else is ready
Methods for holding gravy at serving temperature without it thickening, splitting or forming a skin — from vacuum flasks to bain-maries.
Making a roux
Equal parts fat and flour, and the single most useful two minutes in gravy
A roux is fat and flour cooked together before liquid is added. How long you cook it determines the colour, thickness and flavour of the finished gravy.
Reducing stock
Boiling water away is a flavour technique, not just a thickening one
Reduction concentrates flavour, gelatin and body by evaporating water. It is how a jus gets its gloss and how a thin gravy gets its depth.
Seasoning gravy
Salt, acid, pepper and sweetness — and when to add each
Gravy concentrates as it cooks, so seasoning is the last thing you do. The four levers are salt, acid, pepper and a little sweetness.
Straining and skimming gravy
The two minutes that separate a good gravy from a restaurant one
Skimming removes excess fat; straining removes solids. Between them they turn a rustic pan gravy into something silky.
Thickening with flour vs cornflour
Two starches, two textures, two different gravies
Flour and cornflour both thicken gravy but behave completely differently — in appearance, mouthfeel, stability and how they are added.