What kind of gravy?

For Thanksgiving, I made turkey gravy with pan drippings and all the bits. For liquid I used broth made from the neck, giblets, onion and celery. The gravy was okay, but was lacking something.

Try some lemon juice for balance and a bit of salt.

This is my favorite Cognac gravy. I make it for Thanksgiving and keep it vegetarian, and add turkey drippings to half. The secret is really caramelizing the onions.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/homemade-gravy-recipe-1940501

I cook the neck and parts with onion, celery , carrot in a quart of stock or broth. Then use the drippings and small amount of gravy master , lemon juice or cider vinegar to taste will zip it up.

If my gravy doesn't have enough flavor I add some boullion or base to it. I found out not so long ago if you use cornstarch as your thickener, it will probably separate when you put it in the refrigerator. I always wondered why that happened. Another thing if you add flour to your gravy while it is not boiling it will not get lumpy. That way you don't have to mix it with water or milk first.

That's odd I use cornstarch all the time to thicken my gravy, since I am gluten intolerant and never had it separate in the fridge. Now if you keep it at high heat for to long it will un-thicken. I find that corn starch doesn't need as high of heat as flour to thicken and you don't have to boil it like if you use flour to get rid of the flour taste. I sometimes use base, but I don't like bouillon. A lot of salt for a little flavor.

If gravy is pretty good but needs just a little 'something', you could try a small splash of sherry. Or add a bay leaf if you have time to let it simmer maybe 15 minutes then take the bay leaf out.

I use nothing but Watkins gravy mix. I like the beef better than the chicken.

I usually kick it up with some worchestershire sauce.

With turkeys today being brined, that added liquid might prevent the drippings from caramelizing. I made a turkey breast that I knew wouldn't make drippings so I bought wings and put one under the breast and had the best drippings ever. You can buy turkey parts separately and roast them just for gravy, and even make the gravy a day ahead. Jennie-O sells wings and necks that come two to a package. I also rubbed the breast with butter and I think that helped.

I make broth with the neck when I cook a whole turkey but I used the extra wing this time. I add onion, celery, and a couple sprigs of fresh thyme to the broth and let it simmer for two hours.

How are you making your gravy that you don't like? Might be a simple solution.

I don't usually cook up the turkey neck, but I did this year with onion, celery, and carrots. The broth was so thin compared to the turkey drippings so I just decided to use the turkey dripping and combine the broth with it. I cook my turkey in a bag so I don't get the brown dried up part. The turkey was done before everything else so I drained the liquid and put them in the freezer to get the fat to float to the top. I also added ice cubes to help cool it down. I put a couple of slices of bread in to get additional fat. I made the gravy by mixing some liquid with flour and mixing it into the boiling broth on the stove. I dded three chicken bullion cubes and peppered to taste after that. It was basic, but good.

I read a suggestion that said to elevate the turkey off the bottom of the pan using a wire rack, or it you don't have a rack to place celery and/or carrots on the bottom of the pan as a makeshift rack.

I did that, and then added 1 cup cream sherry and 1 cup water to the pan near the start of roasting. In the end after I filtered the pan drippings, and added flour, and reduced the gravy, I pureed the gravy and decided to add the carrots from the bottom of the pan.

The result was a little more orange than my usual gravy, but it tasted better.

Thanks for the tips and recipes. I never would have thought to add lemon or sherry etc. I am assuming the alcohol burns off.

I was making only 2 turkey thighs so was looking for ideas online and TV. So here is what I did and it was good:

Day before: Baked flour in my toaster oven until light brown. Added it to melted salted butter and made a roux, added herbs, whisked in chicken bone broth and course ground pepper over heat until thickened. Put pot in fridge till next day. Added red wine and a bit more more broth to scraped up drippings in turkey thighs pan over hot stove and put back to pot to reheat. It was good. I don't know if it was the toasted flour or the bone broth but it had a lot of flavor.

I will try the baked flour tip when we have meatloaf on the weekend.