Saturday 10 October 2015

Gravy

We live our lives (or I do) cooking fast these days. Sausages. Chops. Pork steaks. Anything quick and easy.

But.... I love my gravy. And that's good to go if I am pan frying something, as I've got all those lovely caramelised bits in the pan. And roasting of course, no worries, but that takes too long for everyday; roasting is for weekends or days with time to spare.  But if I am grilling, that's tougher.  Nothing to make good gravy. And I don't like Bisto...

I am here to evangelise about the new meat glaces from Essential Cuisine. I apologise in advance if I sound like an infomercial, but they are really, really good. They've had the glaces in the professional bit for ages, and a while back they introduced them into the Home Chef section, but only in quite big pots. They were too expensive for me to invest in since I wanted ALL the flavours.

But now they've introduced them in smaller pots at a much more affordable price. And since you don't need more than a teaspoon full at a time, that's good for a LOT of meals.

So how do I make gravy with no meat juices? I make a roux, as if I were going to make a sauce, but with oil rather than butter and keeping it very thin. Then I mix in some water from the veggies until it is the thickness I like. Then I add a bit of Essential stock powder, and, for the two of us, a good half teaspoonful of meat glace.

Or, you can use a gravy powder, (I like the Essential ones again... but then, if you read my blogs you'll know I am a great fan of Essential, they really do taste much better than other similar things) and add in the glace. And I promise you, it tastes as though you've used the juices from a roast.

We had lamb chops yesterday. I don't like using the fat from the grill pan, it is just too greasy. So I used a bit of lamb stock powder and some lamb glace added into Essential Savoury Gravy powder. Look at the delicious colour on this!


DISCLAIMER: I received samples of the glaces from Essential to say thank you because I rave about their stocks so much. I make no apologies for raving. They are GOOD!