lol...used to drive me nuts when one of my friends would pop open a jar of gravy...omg!

My dh would have added some concoction including chile powder and tabasco and then wondered why no one liked it.

LOL at DH! I can't even imagine using gravy from a jar. My mother taught me to make gravy when I was a kid, and my gravy is very good. It's so easy to make that I don't understand why people have such a hard time making it.

Wnada, I am with you. Didn't everyone learn how. I make my own too. Never understood why people gripe about doing it. I don't have any secret ingredients but I thank my mom for teaching me all that she did before she passed on to early in my life.

Roco 0101, I bet you had the best time watching him. How did you hold it in. Good one. I also like he way you described making it -- the smell, the feel the drip. Yeh, that's what you do.

Do you remember the commercial years ago for gravy in the jar -- what's lurking or floating in the homemade gravy--buy our smooth gravy in a jar. Well, my kids were intrigued with the commercial. I explained that the bits and pieces from the bottom of the pan are what make the homemade gravy taste good. This conversation went on for months, with me always concluding the talk with the comment that canned gravy is not very tastey. But they persisted.

So finally I made a meal with chicken probably and mashed potatoes and jarred chicken gravy, which was like a thick chicken broth. My teenagers quickly learned to appreciated homemade gravy.

I've only ever made gravy from scratch as well......using flour with some water in a jar, shake to mix it up.

Do any of you sprinkle flour right on the drippings? I've seen cooks on tv do that, and they never get lumps. I've never had the guts to do that.

I have two funny gravy stories. One Thanksgiving we went to my SILs house. Her mother (my MIL) was trying to get the turkey strted. She was screaming "Where's the packet? Wher's the packet?" what packet? Why, the packet of gravy that comes with some frozen turkeys, of course. Turns out she had never made gravy from scratch. Another Thanksgiving, same house. BIL was going to make his famous giblet gravy. He had the gravy and "innerds" boiling away, decided to strain out the giblets. Instead he poured the gravy down the drain and had only giblets in the strainer. Thank goodness a local store was open, so it was canned gravy to the rescue.

Yes, I sprinkle the flour right on the drippings, and I never get lumps.

I also learned gravy making from Mom and my grandmother, and mine usually gets raves.

I sprinkle the flour on some gravies--like sausage gravy. After draining out part of the fat from the sausage, sprinkle some flour over the meat and stir. You just want enough flour to sop up all the grease. Let it cook a minute or two and add milk. I use the same method for chicken gravy and chicken fried steak gravy. Just keep adding milk until you get the texture you like.

For beef gravy I keep a jar that I put flour in, then water and shake hard until the lumps are gone. Add to the boiling meat broth and stir,stir, stir!

Jasdip, there are two tricks when you sprinkle the flour in the drippings like patti43 describes. First, the drippings have to be grease of some sort (no water or other liquid in there) and second, when you do add water or milk stir constantly. It will thicken rapidly and you might have to add a little more liquid as you go along. Both ways of thickening gravy work great. Gravy thickened with cornstarch is also good. The way I make it depends on what I'm serving it with and how I want to use it. If you're going to have leftovers, flour thickened gravy reheats nicer.

I have often lamented that I am gifted in making gravy, but where the gods givith in one area, they taketh away in another. For I am unable to make mashed potatoes LOL.

Dances.

Ooooo, I'm going to sprinkle flour directly into the gravy when I make it next time. The gravy we like best is beef gravy....we can take or leave roast chicken/turkey gravy.

Thanks guys!

jasdip - how are you cooking your beef? Like jel48 said, the drippings have to be grease of some sort (sausage, bacon, fried meat) in order to sprinkle the flour directly onto it without lumping. Then after adding the liquid you need to bring it to a boil just for a few seconds at least, then turn it back down and stir constantly.

At our house, after frying bacon for breakfast, mom used the bacon gease to make gravy. It made a flavorful gravy.

I roast my beef well done. Dark drippings in the pan. If it gets cooked away I add a bit of water while the meat is roasting. It makes a dark gravy and DH likes it that way the best.

Maybe this isn't the best way to add the flour directly though, if I'm adding some water to the dish while cooking, if necessary.

Woodchuck, I don't necessarily bring my gravy to a boil when I do the method where you add the flour to the grease in the pan. The reason for boiling gravy is to cook the flour. If you don't cook the flour it doesn't taste right. When I add flour to the grease in the pan, I stir it there (cooking it in the grease before adding the liquid) for a period of time, then I add the liquid. Usually the gravy boils at least at some point while I'm adding liquid, but if not, that's ok too because the flour is already cooked. I guess I just continue to add liquid and stir until it 'looks' like gravy and is the right thickness, then I dish it up and enjoy :-)

I've never used a recipe for gravy, but I went out and looked one up for making this type of gravy - it's called Roux Gravy.

Here is a link that might be useful: Roux Gravy

One of the bonuses, or gravy, while lurking on the KT ...

... is the stories!

o j

Thread killer ... again ... it appears.

o j