Becky's Favorite Turkey Gravy with Roast Drippings

I've been making turkey gravy with roast drippings as long as I've been making my roast turkey. And I've never written down the recipe ... until now!

Warning: to get this right, this is a multi-day affair, starting with making turkey stock from the turkey neck and other bits that don't get brined with the rest of the turkey.  Measurements are approximate, and be sure to taste early and often!

Turkey Stock

Ingredients:
Neck from a turkey-in-a-bag (preferably fresh, but thawed if frozen!)
Two medium onions
Two medium carrots
One medium celery root (or celery stalks in equal volume to carrot)
1 Tbs black peppercorns
A few sprigs of thyme
A few leaves of sage
A few bay leaves

Equipment:
A big stock pot
A relatively fine strainer (smaller pitch than your peppercorns)
Patience

Throw neck from the turkey into the pot (along with any other extra bits that you don't want to put in the brining bag, minus the giblets.  I suppose you can use these, but I have no idea how).  Coarsely chop the onions and throw them into the pot.  (An aside: if you keep the onions in the fridge they won't cause your eyes to water as much.  I just did an experiment, and can confirm this is 100% true. 😭) Peel the carrots and chop them coarsely and throw into the pot.  Throw the peppercorns and herbs into the pot.

Fill with ~4 quarts of water.  Bring to a boil on a back burner, and turn down to a low simmer immediately.  Let it simmer for about 1 hour, and turn off the heat.

For the next few days, about twice a day, turn on the heat and bring to a boil.  Immediately turn off the heat once it gets to a boil.  Every time you do this, more delicious turkeyness will transfer to the water, and your patience will be rewarded.

The day before you are roasting the turkey, put stock through a big strainer into a large bowl to remove all the solid bits (the strainer must be fine enough to capture the peppercorns).  Put in the fridge to cool.  The excess fat will float to the top and solidify.  Skim off as much of this fat as is practical, and dispose of in the compost. 

And there you have it!  Delicious turkey stock.  If it's reduced down a lot, in theory it can be watered down a bit, but then it won't be quite as yummy.  You'll want to save some of this for the stuffing, and the rest for the gravy.  Keep in mind that this is unsalted, so please add salt to your stuffing recipe accordingly (or salt the turkey stock to taste, but leaving it unsalted is more flexible).

Turkey Gravy with Roast Drippings

Ingredients:
Turkey Stock (As much as you want to make into gravy!  You'll get about 1 cup of gravy for each cup of stock)
Salted or unsalted butter (5 Tbs for each 3 cups of stock)
All-purpose flour (1 Tbs for each Tbs of butter)
Salt (to taste; you'll need more if you use unsalted butter)
Fresh-ground black pepper (to taste)
Pan of roast veggies and fat and black stickiness from beneath the roasted turkey.
1 cup red wine (drinkable, but not too nice)

Pour off all the liquid fat from the turkey pan into a bowl.  (Be careful, it's hot!)  This is delicious when poured onto the stuffing before throwing that in the oven while the turkey rests.  Put the roasting pan on the stove, across two burners.  Turn these burners to high.  When the veggies start to sizzle, pour on the red wine and scrape with a wooden spoon to remove anything stuck to the bottom while the alcohol cooks off.  You may need to add a bit more wine or water depending on how dry it gets, how stuck everything is, etc.  Pour the scraped veggies and remaining liquid into a strainer and smush through to save as much of the dripping liquid as possible in a bowl.  If you don't think it's enough, you can repeat this process!  Note that it's important that no solids make it through the strainer.

In a medium saucepan, heat the turkey stock to a low simmer.

In another medium saucepan or saucier, slowly melt the butter on medium low.  When it is melted, add the flour and whisk while it cooks for ~5-10 minutes.  Slowly whisk in the turkey stock, making sure everything is smoothly combined.  Add the roast dripping liquid from above, some fresh ground pepper, and a few pinches of salt.  Whisking frequently, bring to a simmer and cook down to reduce until thickened a bit (about 10 minutes or so?).  Taste for salt and pepper.  Make sure you don't oversalt it before it reduces!