About the Recipe
Grandma made the best meat lover’s gravy around! Her Thanksgiving gravy recipe was made with love and a few secret ingredients. The taste of the gravy was so comforting and delightful that we would all wrestle for the last coveted drop. I will let you in on a few of Grandma’s secret Thanksgiving or Christmas gravy ingredients so you too can make a comforting and delightful old school gravy this Holiday Season.
Ingredients
Roasting Pan Ingredients:
3 Carrots
4 Celery Stems
1 Onion
4 Garlic Cloves
Thyme Sprigs
Parsley Stems
Sage
Turkey Gravy Giblet Poaching Ingredients:
Gizzard
Turkey Neck
Heart
1/2 Onion
2 Celery Leaves
2 Sprigs of Thyme
1 Bay Leaf
4 Parsley Stems
2 Sprigs of Sage
5 Cups of Water (you can also use chicken, vegetable or turkey stock)
Liver
1 lb or 500g Sausage – half chopped for the gravy
Meat Lover’s Gravy Ingredients:
Use the sauté pan you fried the sausage in
Grease from Sausage
Grease from Turkey Drippings (I had roughly 1 tbsp or 15ml)
5 tbsp or 45g Butter
5 tbsp or 45g Flour
3-4 cups of Stock/Poaching liquid used to deglaze the turkey drippings
Giblets – Turkey Neck, Heart and Liver
1/2 cup of Sausage Chopped
Salt and Pepper to Taste
Preparation
1. Begin by adding carrots, celery stems, onion, 4 garlic cloves, thyme sprigs, parsley stems, and sage into the bottom of a turkey roasting pan. Prep the turkey to your liking and bake it in the oven until completely cooked.
2. While the turkey is roasting poach the giblets: Place the gizzard, neck, heart (put the liver in the refrigerator and add to the sauce pan when you have 30 minutes poaching time left) in a large sauce pan with onion, thyme, celery leaves, parsley stems, sage and 5 cups water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and gently simmer for 1 hour. Skim the top of the liquid to remove the impurities as needed.
3. To a large sauce pan cook sausage – use half the sausage for the gravy and half can be used to make a homemade stuffing. When the sausage is done do not clean out the sauce pan it will be used to make the gravy.
4. Once the giblets are poached remove them from the sauce pan, remove the meat from the neck and chop all the giblets up into small pieces and put them to the side. Strain the poaching stock and put it to the side - I had 2 cups. It will be used to get all the dripping from the turkey roasting pan.
5. When the turkey is done put it in a warm place to rest. Put the turkey roasting tray on a burner over medium to low heat, add 3 cups stock (2 cups of the giblet poaching liquid and 1 cup of store-bought chicken or turkey stock). Use a flat bottom spatula to scrape the bottom of the baking tray to release all the bits and pieces. Once all the drippings are combined with the liquid you can turn off the heat and strain out the stock into a fat separator.
6. Separate the grease/fat from the stock. Reserve the turkey grease to make your roux and the stock to make the gravy – I had 1 tbsp grease and roughly 3.5 cups of stock.
7. To make the gravy: Pour the turkey grease into the sauce pan you cooked the sausage in – 1 tbsp turkey grease. You will need 5 tbsp fat/grease total – add additional tbsp of butter as needed. For this recipe, I added 4 tbsp of butter and melted it down. Then add 5 tbsp all purpose flour and mix over medium heat. The roux should look like wet sand. If it is to sold/dry add more butter or grease. Cook for 5 minutes or until you smell a warm nutty smell. Pour in the 3.5 cooking stock, whisk over medium heat. Add all the giblets and ½ pound of chopped sausage. Bring the gravy to a simmer then reduce the heat to low and cook until it is as thick as you like – roughly 5 minutes. Remember that the gravy will become thicker when off heat.
8. Taste and add salt and pepper if needed.