Gluten-Free Turkey Gravy

This is not Simplest Everyday Pan Sauce. This is full-on, takes some effort gravy and it is completely worth it. It is mostly a retelling of Cook’s Illustrated issue 71 November & December 2004 but converted to be gluten free. That issue of the magazine is stained and worn and the kids have a habit of walking off with my old CIs, so I wanted to get it written down here as a backup.

Cook’s Illustrated bases their recipe on the premise of starting with storebought low sodium chicken broth. I don’t do that, however. I blithely defy guidelines on how long to keep things like stock in the freezer, and this year’s turkey stock is always the basis for next year’s gravy. I have been doing this since 2004 with no ill effects and I will keep doing it. You do you. By starting with homemade turkey stock, I am essentially making doubly turkey-flavored gravy. But if all you’ve got is low sodium chicken broth you can start with that.

Evan cooks the turkey on a rack over onions, celery and carrots, which adds even more flavor to the drippings.

I use super fine rice flour as a 1:1 replacement for wheat flour and it yields great results with no funny aftertaste. If all you’ve got is another blended 1:1 GF flour you can certainly use it and it’ll probably taste just fine. 

You can do the broth and roux steps up to a couple of days ahead. Then just heat the gravy before moving on to adding the drippings.

This recipe makes a lot of gravy and we never use more than 1/4 of it on Thanksgiving. This is all according to my plan because I use it in my stuffing bake leftover extravaganza referenced here, which is really the proper way to enjoy gravy.

INGREDIENTS

1 TBSP oil (something that can withstand heat)

Giblets from your turkey but don’t include the liver

1 onion, peel on, chopped coarsely

4 c. homemade turkey broth or storebought low-sodium chicken broth

2 c. water

2 sprigs fresh thyme

8 parsley stems (stalk and leaves)

3-4 TBSP butter (I use more butter if I have extra stock to throw in)

4-5 TBSP superfine rice flour (use the higher amount if putting in extra stock)

1 c. dry white wine mixed with 1 c. of the broth you make in the first part or with water—for deglazing

Drippings from your turkey

Salt and pepper to taste

Splash of champagne or white wine vinegar if you need a bit of brightness

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat the oil on medium-high in 4 qt saucepan (or one that’s at least 2 qt and has a nice wide bottom)
2. Add the giblets and cook for 5 minutes, turning occasionally. It will splatter, so you might want to use a guard
3. Add the onion and cook an additional 3 minutes, stirring a few times
4. Cover and cook over low for 20 minutes
5. Return heat to medium high and add the broth and water, scraping the bottom to get the goodness off the bottom of the pan
6. Add the thyme and parsley, bring to a boil then lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. If there is scum, you can skim it off at this point—I don’t find this to be an issue and rarely bother; you’re going to strain it anyway
7. Once the time is up, put the broth through a fine-mesh strainer, cool and then refrigerate. If you want giblets in your gravy, chop them up and refrigerate until needed. I choose not to do this but throw them in my stock pot for the next year’s stock. If you’re not doing this as a make-ahead, just keep the broth warm until needed but I transfer it to a smaller pot so I can re-use the wide-bottomed one for my roux. Set aside 1 cup of this broth for deglazing the pan. The CI recipe only tells you to do this when you’re at the “add to roux” stage so I almost always forget and have to mix my wine e with water. That still totally works
8. When you’re ready to make the roux, make sure that you’ve got your broth nearby and hot (or so that it will be hot in 10 or 15 minutes when you’ll need it. Then melt the butter in that wide-bottomed sauce pan over medium low
9. When it’s melted, whisk in the rice flour. I use a flat-bottomed whisk. Keep whisking (CI says constantly but I’m not so fastidious) and cooking until your roux is light to medium brown and smells delicious
10. I like to turn my heat down at this point just to make it all a bit less dramatic. Take a ladle-ful of hot broth and add it to the roux, whisking constantly. It will sputter and seize up but just keep whisking. Once you’ve got the broth and roux incorporated, add another ladle-ful of broth. It’ll get easier to incorporate every time. In the early stages, you’re looking for a silky-smooth paste that slowly thins out as you add more liquid. Once your gravy is very liquidy you can add more broth at a time with no ill effects
11. Simmer gravy for 30 minutes. Again Cook’s Illustrated tells you to skim the scum but my gravy is just not that scummy. If this is make-ahead, cool and refrigerate until you take the turkey out of the oven, then bring it up to a low simmer
12. When your turkey is out of the oven and resting, take the pan on which it was cooked and put it over two burners. We have an induction stove and treated ourselves to the Misen roasting pan this year. It works on induction, saving me the effort and irritation of trying to get drippings from a non-induction-ready half-sheet pan into something that I can work with. It is a really great pan. At any rate, when your pan is on the burners, turn them both on high and add the wine/broth or wine/water. Scrape constantly to get the baked-on bits off the bottom and cook until the liquid is reduced by half
13. Pour the drippings through a sieve into a gravy separator (at least this is how I do it) so that the fat mostly stays on the top. Because the sieve of my Oxo gravy separator has large holes, I pour the drippings through a small fine-mesh strainer into my waiting gravy. Add a bit of them and then taste. Add as many drippings as you like then adjust for seasoning with salt, pepper and vinegar. I also like to dump in the juices that accumulate on the cutting board when Evan is carving the turkey
14. If there are any unused drippings or juices, I add them to my stock pot as well to flavor next year’s gravy