[jyl]

I helped my sister w/ the turkey yesterday. She brought the mostly-cooked bird to my house to finish it, I did the roast lamb and other stuff (creamed corn w/ bacon, creamed spinach, pumpkin-ginger pudding, mashed spuds, brocolli casserole, a couple of pies, and a fair bit of wine.)

Anyway, she has always struggled with her gravy. Year after year, her gravy ends up lumpy and nasty, and they end up with gravy recontituted from brown powder. She has developed low gravy self-esteem.

So, we cured her blues, and it was sort of accidental. When she arrived with the bird, we poured the drippings into a saucepan, then put the turkey in my oven for its final hour. Which meant she had over an hour to do the gravy. That turned out to be the answer to her problem. Normally, she gets the drippings when the bird is done, which means she has only 20 min or so to do the gravy, at a time when other dishes need attention too. So she panics and dumps more and more flour straight into the drippings, resulting in an awful sludge.

The extra time made all the difference. She had time to whisk the flour into some milk, add that slowly to the drippings, cook it down, add some cream, and produce a nice gravy. So, from now on, she'll harvest the drippings an hour before the bird is done.

Next year, maybe I'll get her to make a roux ahead of time. That would make her process even easier.