Onion gravy

Per 4 people:

• 1 onion
• 1 stock cube if you’re short on meat juices
• Some cornstarch (or flour)

And, of course, you need to collect the juices from whatever meat you’re roasting. If you’re frying, not roasting, then you’ll want some red wine to deglaze pans with.

Prep: Caramelise the onion

• Slice radially
• Into a pan with a bit of hot water, lid on. I don’t think you need to add salt or anything. Some sources recommend baking soda - I tried it once but couldn’t tell the difference.
• High heat until the water is mostly gone, then low heat for ages (45 mins?). If you want to use medium heat then add oil first.

You can do this the night before and store the results in the fridge.

Method

1. Put the caramelised onion into a saucepan
2. Add the water you used to par-boil the veggies
3. Every time you get a pan with fond on it, deglaze it with red wine and add it to the pot.
4. Once your meat has rested, dump in the juices!
5. Dissolve the stock cube(s) if necessary
6. Make a slurry with cornstarch and cold water, mix until all the powder is in suspension, then add some hot water, mix again, and add it to the pan.
7. If your meat didn’t produce much in the way of rendered fat, you could add some manually (oil/butter). I haven’t tried this.

Notes

The cornstarch is for thickening the sauce. It also helps the fats to dissolve, I believe.

You could add some worcestershire sauce, or mustard. Some even suggest adding demiglace. You don’t need any of this stuff if you’ve got juices from the meat.

Some people suggest blending the contents of the trivet with stock; but this ends up more like a soup than a gravy.

I have sometimes started with a small roux. This leads to a very thick gravy.

Some people suggest adding a small amount of cranberry sauce or jam. I’ve done this but have no idea if it made a difference.