The Dilemma of Ready to rock the (gravy) boat

Another Kitchen Shrink coming at you in the lead up to the wonderful but stressful Thanksgiving dinner.

And a reminder to download the Substack app so you can ask questions live tomorrow. I’ll be here to answer them at 1pm EST with Clare de Boer!

Dear Tamar:

Gravy vs jus. I don’t like a floury, thick turkey gravy, but I don’t really know what my alternatives are. How can I make all that cooking liquid into a delicious turkey topper?

-Ready to rock the (gravy) boat

Dear Ready to rock,

When I was a child, I lived each year in anticipation of thick, creamy gravy. The longer it stayed still on my plate, the better—I used to eat it with a spoon. Straying from the topic: I also used to want my clam chowder so thick I could stand a spoon in it. These days, I want chowder thin as cream, ideally made with just heavy cream, clam juice, and a bit of wine. And I prefer a deeply roasted, thinner, jus-like gravy to the thick, floury one of childhood.

Here’s what I recommend for you: get or make a quart of good stock, ideally from roasted bones, or a double stock. Also get a branch of thyme, 1/4 cup of white wine, some butter, and a tablespoon of flour. On Thursday, once the turkey is out of the pan, drain off the fat, and place the pan, full of drippings, directly on your stovetop and turn on the burners under it. With a wooden spoon in hand, pour the wine into the pan and scrape like mad. The instant the drippings have released, turn off the burners. If they don’t release, and the wine has evaporated, add some of the stock and continue to scrape. Set this watery clumpy delicious mess aside.

Now, heat a little pot, add two tablespoons of salted butter and two tablespoons of turkey fat—this will make a slightly fatty but still thin gravy. If you want it less fatty, add less fat. Add the tablespoon of flour and stir through. Add the clumpy delicious mess, and stir well, then add the rest of the stock gradually. Add the thyme branch and let it bob about. The resulting gravy should be, a I mentioned, quite thin, but also very flavorful. If it needs salt, which it probably does, add it.

When I was in Maine recently, I made lobster ramen from lobster stock I’d made from lobster shells. I panicked, worrying that my stock would be too thin to hold up to ramen noodles, and, while the pot of shells simmered and clattered, bought Better than Bouillon Lobster base. I didn’t end up using it because the panic had been baseless, and my stock held up to the ramen, plus heavy cream, lobster, scallions and more. The jar of Better than Bouillon came back to New York with me and now takes up real estate on my top refrigerator shelf. But it reminded me that such bases exist. This turkey gravy base gets stellar reviews from its fans. I don’t trust reviews. I don’t, generally, trust people. As Charles Schultz famously wrote:

In this case, though, I can’t say why, but I’m convinced the gravy base is good. You could get a jar, add it to your drippings, add a bit of milk, or stock, or both, and call it a gravy or a jus.

Dear cook, I hope I’ve helped you rock the gravy boat. It is certainly a good time to do so, and I trust you’ve got the crew and the oars to keep your boat steady amid the chop.