Chemical engineer here: it’s definitively the amylase from saliva. As an enzyme, amylase doesn’t really loose its function unless you heat it. It will work more slowly under cooler temperatures. At a nice 30-35 degrees Celsius (about 80-90 in freedom units) it should go back to completely liquid in a couple of hours.
I am so excited that all the chemistry folks are jumping in with this wonderful information. thank you for providing specific temperature. Hot hot does it need to be heated and for how long to deactivate? I heard 180F for at least a minute in the context of pastry cream, but I don't know how accurate that is.
@@helenrennie hmm good question. I quickly checked on Elicit (science stuff) and as far as I got it the denaturation temperature depends on many variables, like pH or concentration of Calcium ions and more interestingly starch itself act as antidenaturant (i.e. protects the enzyme from denaturation to some extent). It could be fun (depending on the definition of fun) to take some aliquots of gravy at different temperatures/cooking time and put it on solutions of starchy water (like when you wash rice for asian recipes) with a few drops of iodine tincture and check the change of colour over time :)
I so enjoy you channel here! As an engineer myself, I like the way you approach problem solving. Excellent work! What an great tip on the "saliva thing." As an amateur cook, I am a fanatic about washing my tasting spoons after every sample and in cooking school they instruct us to use each tasting spoon only once. I've added this video to my Thanksgiving recipes list. Thank you.
I was so glad to see someone do a video on this subject. My mother told me about saliva from tasting and double dipping breaking down sauces and gravies when I was just learning to cook. I have never seen it mentioned anywhere else before. Thank you ❤
To avoid saliva contaminating your gravy with the tasting-spoon, do what my late Mother did: use a big wooden spoon to stir the gravy and drip a sample into your tasting-spoon. Your tasting-spoon never goes into the gravy. Your stirring-spoon never gets near your mouth. Problem solved! Mom also used pan drippings (for flavour) to make her roux and the hot water from the boiled potatoes and other vegs instead of stock to thin the gravy. Delicious gravy!!
I have used your stirring spoon + tasting spoon technique for years, in gravy making, jam making, whatever. My mother was a nurse so she trained us well.
We use a small dish like the ones used for soy sauce and taste from that. The wide shallow mouth allows for colour checking as well as faster cooling to taste correctly. And no contamination.
I prefer the dark gravy...but as you mentioned it won't thicken as much. To counteract this, when my roux is almost to the point I want I will add a few tablespoons more of flour. Cook it off enough to get rid of the raw flour taste. Voila, a dark and thick gravy. Thanks again for your channel I love your in-depth explanations !
Excellent tip. Much easier than what I do, which is to deeply roast some vegetables (carrots and onions mainly) that go into the stock. But as you guessed, it’s easy to burn them.
Interesting method! I just use a lot more flour from the start and take all of it to a chocolatey color. It still thickens up fine, and I get all of those toasty flour flavors.
My trick for a slightly darker gravy that adds great flavor is to add soy sauce. Importantly, do this before adding salt or your gravy will be too salty. Adds good salt and umami
Fascinating! Helen, your video demonstrations are always interesting and thought provoking, but this one is borderline riveting!! We are thankful for you. Much love to you and to your family! Be well.
The “all-purpose” gravy Kenji Lopez-Alt developed for Cooks Illustrated years ago is still my Thanksgiving go-to. I’ve made gravy the hard way, with turkey stock/drippings, but I always come back to the all-purpose recipe. It uses premade stock/broth and can also be made ahead and frozen, which is a huge advantage.
I'm an engineer and beer brewer, so I learned about alpha & beta amylase regarding beer mashing, and the principles carried over to cooking perfectly well. With mash, you crush grain, add hot water, and let it soak, converting starches to sugars. There's alpha and beta amylase and each works at different temperature ranges: beta is 131F-149F, alpha is 145F-158F. For a 90% conversion, heat your slurry/mash in stages, starting with beta for 30 mins and alpha at 15 mins. I use 140F and 153F when doing step mashing. If you're in a hurry (e.g. cooking), do a single step conversion at 153F, and the longer you hold this temp, the more conversion you'll get, just don't go over an hour or you'll start getting off-flavors. Myself, when cooking with a flour+water slurry, I heat my mixture to 153F for 15mins and it's good enough. :)
I have had the issue of thinning gravy and other sauces/soups and have NOT been able to figure it out despite lots of experimenting. Thank you SO MUCH for this!
May seem a minor issue to some BUT a huge issue to me. I am a gravy perfectionist. I did not know about amylase in saliva! What an eye opener. Thank you, Helen. ⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️
🤯 My partner always double-dips with the spoon and it grosses me out slightly. Now I have a great reason to mention why it's a bad idea! Who knew such a small amount of amylase could make a difference?! I love gravy, and there were so many good tips about how to make it properly. Thanks, Helen, for another video that I learned so much from!
Trust me just about every resturaunt you've ever eaten at does it. Agree though pretty disgusting but in your case that's your partner so be honest if they have gingivitis.
Another 10/10 video Helen. From a once professional (though short career) Chef, to now the main home cook for 3 families, I thank you greatly for the information and research you do.
Well I tried your advice and your absolutely correct!! Dont use the same spoon to taste the gravy!! What a difference!! Amazing!! Love your show!! Keep going!!
It's a rare day I disagree with you, Ms. Rennie, but if you've never had "brown gravy", which is gravy thickened with a dark roux, you haven't had gravy yet. Chicken stock is particularly excellent when spiced and thickened with dark roux. Likewise, beef stock gets a deeper flavor than is achievable any other way when you make beef gravy with it. You do need more, and it does take a long time to get the roux to that stage, but it's so worth it.
Glad other folks piped in to mention this. I attempted Thanksgiving gravies year after year and was never satisfied with the flavor. I tried compensating with salt or herbs or acid, and even MSG, but it just didn't sing. Then one year I finally tried a dark roux and I found EXACTLY what it was missing! Oh I don't think I will ever go back to a blonde gravy ever again.
Amylase isn't the only way to degrade starch. Acid will also do it. This paper found that 24 hours at 4 °C and 5 pH was enough to reduce the viscosity by half. doi: 10.1007/s13197-013-0998-7 Wine typically has a pH of between 3 and 4. Depending on alkalinity of your stock and ratio of ingredients, this could easily be sufficient to explain your thinning gravy without involving any saliva. You may also consider reading "Texture - A hydrocolloid recipe collection" by Martin Lersch; A cookbook which details appropriate conditions for a variety of thickeners, including stability or lack thereof in acid.
acidic hydrolysis was also the first thing I thought of when I heard that sauces with water didn't thin out whereas sauces with other stuff like wine did. I wasn't sure how well it works on starches and other polysaccharides, but I do know that adding a little water and acid to melting sugar or caramel does split a bit of the sucrose into monosaccharides, thereby filling the same function as adding corn syrup would in preventing crystals from forming.
Thanks! I was worried about acidity too, but the second gravy made with the same exact ingredients (including wine) and beurre manie didn't thin out. Thanks for the book suggestion. I'll look it up :)
@@spinningbackspin I wouldn't worry about bourbon. While the pH can be similar to wine, the titratable acidity of whiskey is typically 10% that of wine. Combined with the fact that spirits tend to be used in smaller volume than wine and the effect on pH of the gravy is too small to matter.
I make a simple gravy maybe a couple times a year. So, I really tuned in to see you how you handle roux, and WOW! I learned so much! No more repeat tastings from one spoon. And thanks for the ratios. You really outdid yourself here. Happy Thanksgiving!
This was such a helpful video. Just in time for Thanksgiving gravy making. Many years ago I fed my little one commercially prepared baby food, usually directly from the jar. She'd only eat half of a tiny jar at a meal. The second day, the food much thinner. It took me awhile to realize those strained peaches were predigested! That being said, I'm not a fan of re-using tasting spoons without a wash.
Thanks for another terrific video! Your painstaking analysis of cooking problems makes things much simpler in my humble home kitchen. Thanks again, and all the best to you and your family this Holiday season!
My brother, an avid cook, got the idea to keep a small container full of cheap teaspoons next to the stove as tasting spoons. Use once, put in the dishwasher. He keeps 10-12 cheap metal teaspoons next to his stove in a nice ceramic container. He said it's easier than having to wash off the spoon every time he wants to taste something or his wife wants to taste something. Just grab a fresh teaspoon from the contain.
I so enjoy your channel, and the very interesting comments as well. You've attracted a very informed audience. I'm a retired dentist, and at the risk of being thought flippant, I'll say that as dentists we say, "Spit Happens!" Just having fun. Love your cooking suggestions.
Helen this was very interesting and I learned a lot about making gravy. I can see myself coming back to re-watch your video in the future. Happy Turkey Day 🦃
What a magnificent video. I wish I could hug you. I’m one of those serious home cooks obsessed with serving clean food. Tasting spoons are a big deal. I use cheap ones from the dollar store and have about 30 in a close reach jar by my stove. They are used only once. Respecting your guests is important. NOT serving them your spit is very important. Again fantastic video. Thank you!!!
I noticed this several years ago with many products, for example, yoghurt, or pudding. I never thought this was a revelation, I just stopped using the same spoon, and always use a fresh one for anything and everything, if I have to taste it more than once.
Once again, thank you. Helen for an amazing video. I had to laugh at your mea culpa on the tasting spoon issue. I never would have guessed that saliva from a tasting spoon would have that effect.
That's super interesting. I often double the recipe and I noticed the sauce is more liquid for the following meal. Thanks so much for this info, I will make sure to be careful from now on. I also saw years ago a video about baby food and how it was more liquid the next day due to the baby's saliva.
Thank you for this video-it's so good! I loved learning why the butter stops bubbling and the effect it has. I'm so glad I saw this video. By the way, in one of my Julia Child books, she says to add the hot stock to the roux, so I have always done it that way.
As LBJ said, "Don't spit in the soup (or gravy), we all have to eat." This was very ineresting and helpful. I could earily see making the same mustake.
Helen, I like how you approach to cooking as a science! Here is my thinking regarding thickening of gravy: dissolving flour in butter requires too much butter which would make gravy too greasy. My mom taught me to gently fry flour without any fat to get rid of the raw flour flavor, cool it down and then use it for gravy. It takes about 10 minutes to brown flour without any fat in a frying pan, to a nice golden color.
My shortcut to a dark cajun roux is to toast the flour in a 350 degree oven until it is noticeably darker. It will get much darker after adding fat, so I check by wetting samples with water. A medium nut brown flour will make a nearly chocolate colored roux. I make large batches of this and store it for later. No need to cook the flour in the fat, just mix it together and you're set.
@@Elena-mk6bf Yes, I stir it. I use a big baking pan with a lip and spread the flour out as much as possible. I want to get as much surface exposed to the heat as possible. Once it starts darkening, it will move quickly. Be ready with a white plate and a container with water to test its doneness. Once you are happy with the "wet color", take it out of the oven and cool it before storing. This will have much less thickening power than white roux, so you can always add some white roux or that flour/butter combination if you need more thickening. Maybe that's why they use gumbo file (sasafrass) in Louisiana to thicken...
@@Elena-mk6bfsorry, I forgot to answer your question. At 350 it takes me about 40 minutes, but it depends on several factors - how much flour you have in the pan, how thick the layer, how often you stir it. The good thing is that you can prepare enough for several batches of gumbo and keep it till you need it. And you don’t have to stand over the stove stirring your roux hoping that you won’t burn it.
I've made the same experience with home-made pudding (not the British kind). A FOMO portion ended up being too much for me to eat, so I put the left-overs back into the fridge. It turned into a disgusting puddle. The correlation to my saliva was clear, I just never bothered to figure out exactly how. Thank you for your video!
Wow, I’ve learned a lot from this video, also it brought back memories from when my kids were babies and I experienced the same thing with baby food. After feeding them I would refrigerate any left overs. The next day when I warmed it up it was watery. Come to find out it was saliva that caused the watery consistency of the jarred baby food.
Interesting topic. I've never had a gravy thin out but I have had pastry cream thin out and not allow the cream to thicken. I kind of knew it had something to do with how long the eggs got cooked but didn't know that it was amylase that needed to be deactivated. Thank you for that. On the gravy topic I was hoping this video would show me how to thicken a gravy without starch, flour or any carbohydrate. This may not be possible.
Great video! I made a stew recipe that used powdered gelatin to thicken it. Advantage was that it stayed thick the next day, unlike corn starch. I wonder if gelatin can be used for gravy.
Just wanted to mention to everyone if someone might not be aware about a special kind of flour to thicken gravy called Wondra flour. Wondra flour is made using a special process called pregelatinization. This process involves cooking the flour with steam and then drying it out. Here's how it works: Pregelatinization Process: Cooking with Steam: The flour is cooked with steam, which causes the starches in the flour to gelatinize. This means the starches absorb water and swell, making them easier to dissolve when mixed with liquids later. Drying: After the flour is cooked, it is then dried back into a powder form. This drying process ensures that the flour remains in a form that can be easily measured and stored, while still retaining its instant dissolving properties. Benefits: No Clumping: Because the starches in Wondra flour are already gelatinized, it dissolves instantly in hot or cold liquids without forming lumps. Smooth Texture: It creates a smooth, consistent texture in gravies, sauces, and other dishes.Versatile: It can also be used for dredging meats for a light coating before frying or for thickening soups and stews. This process makes Wondra flour particularly useful for quickly thickening gravies and sauces with a smooth finish.
Learning that salivary amylase can digest the starch in a roux-based gravy or sauce that has been heated to a simmer is _wild._ I'd long assumed that an enzyme which works optimally at just below body temperature would be _completely denatured_ at a temperature near boiling. Thanks for your contribution to culinary science!
I you boiled the sauce for a full minute after tasting it, I believe that would deactivate amylase, but if you tasted it after taking it off the heat and put the spoon back in, the amylase will do its thinning job.
Ohh Helen! Yet another fantastic video. Your attention to detail is so very much appreciated. You're an outstanding chef! And you're so dammed cute. Please continue with your wonderful videos and amazing culinary intuition.
When I make Norwegian brown sauce or gravy, I like to add some brown cheese. It adds a nice color and I love the caramelized taste. It also helps with texture. Not everyone likes to eat the brown cheese as it is, but as an ingredient in sauces, it's extremely underestimated. By the way, it's sold in the US under the name «Ski Queen».
Hi there, I also wanted to add something here because I haven't seen anyone mention it! The Amylase from you mouth is α-Amylase. It functions best at neutral to slightly Acidic PH (That is to say 7-6). Starch works optimally at 7 PH as well BUT can still work at a PH of 5.5! And so if you want to set that gravy back up and you have something to measure your PH and reduce the PH down (for example Lemon Juice?) and then add the starch back to gel your gravy! This will greatly improve the life of your thickened gravy ...but at that point... You've measured the PH and cooked it twice... It's a lot of effort...
I have my 7th grade science teacher to thank for teaching me about amylase. I take a spoon and drip sauces onto a small dish (to quickly cool it), or onto my finger (if it’s cool enough) 😂😂 But you tasting the sauce several times because it tasted really good, is so relatable LOL
Who knew? I always thought it was about the 'germs' and tried not to double-dip a tasting spoon into gravy/sauce I'm serving to family and friends. Did not realize I was also saving the day on gravy consistency at the same time :)
Thank you, as always, for a well thought out and educational video. Here’s my question: Whenever a recipe calls for a roux, the author makes a big deal about cooking out the “raw flour” taste. Somehow that that goes out the window when they call for a beurre manié. So… what’s the deal with that?
I've simmered roux sauce for 2 hours. No thinning after cooling, though it was an absurd amount of sauce so maybe that matters. The saliva thing was incredibly interesting.
so interesting! would never have thought about the cause and relate this vid to one by Pailin's channel 'hot thai kitchen' where jok (congee/rice porridge) will suffer the same fate from a double dipper😊😅
Fantastic video! The amylase in the saliva is a salient point. I've always considered starch thickened sauces to be less flavorful than other thickening methods. The starch seems to steal/dilute flavor from the sauce more. I try to rely on gelatin, xanthan gum, caramelized onions, and melting cold butter to maintain the emulsion, which doesn't seem to detract any of the flavor. I wonder, what is the argument for using starch? Low cost and easy availability? Toasty flavors from browning the roux? I usually don't lack for Maillard flavor in my sauces from ample browning of the meat and fond.
I think it's the quantity of the sauce. Most of my pan sauces don't use any starch and just rely on gelatin, but they are very intense and putting a ladle of them all over your mashed potatoes could be too much. I usually use them in small amounts. Gravy is used more liberally and it's intended to be more creamy and less syrupy.
Amylase is a catalyst. a single protein could remove all the starch given enough time., as the process does not use up the enzyme. More Amylase means faster starch degradation, any amount will degrade all the starch given enough time. Actually it would depend on nothing else degrading the amylase for a single molecule, but the point stands for even a couple micrograms.
Due to family with gluten issues, I always have to search up how much of various starches to use... Usually potato since I read that it last better for storage. I make a gallon of gravy for thanksgiving every year, but always forget make note of the amount of starch...
My mom, and hence me, always use a flour slurry to adjust gravy's consistency. You have to stir/whisk as you add it, and bring it to a boil for a minute. I'd be interested to hear what you think of this.
Helen, can you do an investigation on the thickening performance and taste effects of different types of thickeners for gravy? Cornstarch slurry, for example, does not need to be cooked and is great for soups, but I wonder if it's good for gravy.
I've also been trying to learn more about how different starches may have different effects. It's a really interesting subject (IMHO). I use cornstarch for gravy (AKA Cornflour in the UK) and my family have for decades. I believe some use potato starch or arrowroot - I know some of them hold their thickness better than others, but can't remember which have the best properties. @helenrennie - do you ever use different starches other than wheat flour for thickening? And am I correct in assuming wheat starch is most popular because it seems to add a bit of taste compared to the others?
Hi helen, great video again, thanks. Sauce making requires: hot roux - cold stock, cold roux- hot stock, cold roux - cold stock. Never ever hot roux - hot stock. When I was an apprentice I already learned not to stick your finger in the salpicon pot. Even that could ruin your salpicon. It happened to me of course and it can be a costly mistake. Even split-pea soup has the nasty habbit to thin out if you use the same tasting spoon opr taste with your fingers. Luckily people don't thin out after kissing, lol.
@@tjorb Hot stock on a hot roux will encapsulate roux parts guickly and create lumps that can no longer absorb the stock. Warm on warm is possible but you have to stirr vigilantly which will create gluten (and sugar) which are not wanted in your sauce.
Hi Helen! I LOVE when you do deep dives like this. One thing I have never seen (and have not tried-YET) is using a roux powder with butter as a beurre manié. Roux powder is simply flour toasted, either in the oven or in a dry stainless steel skillet, until the desired color is reached (you have to add a few drops of water to see the actual color the flour has gotten to) and then cooled for later use-MUCH easier and less nerve-wracking than cooking a traditional dark roux. I first heard of this from a recipe published by the Times-Picayune of New Orleans newspaper for Thanksgiving Gumbo (made from leftovers), and later from Cook's Illustrated for one of their gumbo recipes. I have been wondering how a blond roux powder used in a beurre manié might taste, and how it might be easier to get the flavor alongside the thickening power of a lighter roux. It might be possible to combine a darker blond powder with plain flower to get the best of both worlds-a beurre manié with both the flavor of a darker roux and the thickening power of a light roux without having to make two different rouxes. Please let me know what you think about the concept. Thanks again for all of your wonderful cooking videos, and I hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday season!
@@helenrennie Hi Helen! I haven't ever seen this anywhere else either-it honestly was just something that popped into my head one day when thinking about (I promise I'm not making this up) the difficulties my brother sometimes has with making Thanksgiving gravy! I have some pretty dark (cinnamon color) roux powder from another recipe, and I will try to make a few other shades and see what happens on my end.
@@helenrennie Every year my botanical group has a foraging lunch, including our favorite 'soupe à la farine rotie' or browned flour soup. We add the flour to a pot over medium heat, and stir it constantly with a wooden spoon until it matches the spoon. Then stir in stock and seasonings, and at the last minute, your favorite foraged greens - chickweed in our case, but dandelion, sow thistle, amaranth, or any other lettuce-like texture works fine. This is a traditional dish from the east of France/Switzerland. You can also toast the flour spread on a baking sheet in the oven. I have observed that the darker the flour, the less thickening power it has.
I've tried the flour toasting trick before for gumbo and whatnot. It is an interesting idea, and I guess if you frequently make a lot of dark roux dishes it can be helpful, but I found it way more fussy to brown and stir the flour in the skillet or oven than to just make the roux the traditional way. Plus it took an even longer time making the roux powder.
Helen, I’ve been watch in for years! Thanks for continuing to provide excellent cooking advice! We make our gravy on the Monday before Thanksgiving. Most make-ahead gravy’s call for a roux, but there are other ways to thicken. In his Coniac Turkey Gravy video, Chef Jean Pierre shows a technique where he makes a fortified stock, puts a sieve into the pot so that the bottom is submerged, adds raw flour to the sieve, and whisks it into the stock. The gravy is cooked for a few hours, so the raw flour is cooked off. Have you tried this technique? How might it affect the thickening of the gravy? I was waiting for you to talk about other thickening agents such as a cornstarch slurry or arrowroot. Is there a reason you don’t use those methods or prefer using beurre manié? Finally, I imagine the reason for bringing the gravy to a boil when adding beurre manié is to ensure the flour is cooked off. How long should the gravy boil (or is it completely cooked off when the gravy comes to a boil)?
I haven't tried Jean Pierre method -- it sounds like a standard french brown sauce (stock, wine, and flour simmered for a long time). The flour will lose some thickening power, but the amount he uses probably takes that into account. Other thickening agents: cornstarch will thin out upon reheating. Other than that, it works. Arrowroot. It's a nice thickening agent, but not many people have it on hand. The only advantage those two have over flour is that they are gluten free. If you cooking for someone who is gluten free, you can just use gluten free flour in a standard roux or beurre manie. I haven't tested that, but Cook's Illustrated has and they reported good results. You bring a sauce to a boil after adding beurre manie in order for it to thicken. Neither roux, nor beurre manie will fully work until you reach a boil. Once the sauce thickens, the flour taste is cooked off. Those two happen simultaneously.
@ THANK YOU for the detailed response. I didn’t realize corn starch doesn’t maintain its thickening power. I’ll have to keep closer attention. Welp… the turkey arrived on Friday and I’ll have to see if it’s ready for spatchcocking. 🎼 Off spatchcocking I go! Off spatchcocking I go! Hi-ho the derry-o… 🎼 . As always, thanks for your guidance. “And may the odds be ever in your favor!”
My sister told me a long time ago that saliva will begin digesting any food it comes into contact with. Since then, I’ve always tried to remember to keep my tasting spoons out of the food!
Cornstarch makes a tasty gluten free alternative, but it's finicky! Boiling the gravy too rapidly or for more than 7 minutes causes thinning. Optimum time to boil it is one to three minutes.
Okay I have noticed this phenomenon with creamy soups! By the end of eating a bowl of those kinds of soups, it’s always weirdly thin and I’ve alwaaaaays wondered why that happens.
My tip is to taste with two spoons - a teaspoon to dip into the liquid to be tasted, and a big table spoon which is used to sip. When you pour the sample from the teaspoon onto the tablespoon, not only does this eliminate the chance of any saliva being returned to the pan, but the extra mass in the tablespoon disipates heat, meaning you can even taste-test a boiling liquid without burning your mouth. Just make sure the tablespoon never goes near the pan!
bigger metal spoon to receive the tasting sample and cool it faster! completely obvious now that you say it but i never thought of it! also, slightly less chance of spills dumping a smaller spoonful into a larger spoon
Question! Last year I made a gravy with a darker roux, about chocolate shade, and I knew going in that it wouldn't thicken the gravy but it did taste really good, but thickening it was a challenge. My question is, how would you advise going about thickening a gravy made with dark roux?
I would remove some roux earlier and reserve it. Then cook part of your roux to the dark stage. Add the lighter roux back in and add your liquid. Alternatively, add some beurre manie in the end.
Not sure if this helps, but I did the same chocolatey roux last year and it thickened up just fine, but you have to use a lot more flour to compensate. I followed Jacob Burton's gravy (you can search it on TH-cam) and it came out beautifully. I used 225 grams of flour for a 1/2 gallon of gravy, which is almost exactly double the ratio for Helen's blonde roux amounts. Plus, this means I get to add some more yummy turkey fat to my gravy! 🤤
I had an issue last week when I made a blueberry pie recipe from Joy of cooking. It called for five cups of blueberries (annoying since they are sold by the ounce) and four tablespoons of cornstarch (upper of the range.) It ended up watery. I tried heating it more the next day but it never thickened. I still don't know if I should have used more cornstarch or cooked it longer. Ugh!
A roux question just occurred to me based on part of your video: As I understand it, a roux is equal parts flour and fat, right? I've always thought it doesn't matter what fat you use - butter, vegetable oil, etc. But you reminded me that a lot of butter is part water, so wouldn't this mean that to get equal parts flour and fat I should use more butter than flour? Thank you for the informative video, BTW! I usually make gravy only at Thanksgiving, and I always kind of play it by ear and make guesses at proportions, technique, etc, just hoping for the best. I can approach it this year with more confidence!
It doesn't need to be equal parts fat and flour. You just need enough fat for the flour to move around the pan comfortably without forming a very dense clump.
Chemical engineer here: it’s definitively the amylase from saliva.
As an enzyme, amylase doesn’t really loose its function unless you heat it. It will work more slowly under cooler temperatures. At a nice 30-35 degrees Celsius (about 80-90 in freedom units) it should go back to completely liquid in a couple of hours.
I am so excited that all the chemistry folks are jumping in with this wonderful information. thank you for providing specific temperature. Hot hot does it need to be heated and for how long to deactivate? I heard 180F for at least a minute in the context of pastry cream, but I don't know how accurate that is.
@@helenrennie hmm good question. I quickly checked on Elicit (science stuff) and as far as I got it the denaturation temperature depends on many variables, like pH or concentration of Calcium ions and more interestingly starch itself act as antidenaturant (i.e. protects the enzyme from denaturation to some extent). It could be fun (depending on the definition of fun) to take some aliquots of gravy at different temperatures/cooking time and put it on solutions of starchy water (like when you wash rice for asian recipes) with a few drops of iodine tincture and check the change of colour over time :)
I so enjoy you channel here! As an engineer myself, I like the way you approach problem solving. Excellent work! What an great tip on the "saliva thing." As an amateur cook, I am a fanatic about washing my tasting spoons after every sample and in cooking school they instruct us to use each tasting spoon only once. I've added this video to my Thanksgiving recipes list. Thank you.
I'm impressed with her research.
I was so glad to see someone do a video on this subject. My mother told me about saliva from tasting and double dipping breaking down sauces and gravies when I was just learning to cook. I have never seen it mentioned anywhere else before. Thank you ❤
To avoid saliva contaminating your gravy with the tasting-spoon, do what my late Mother did: use a big wooden spoon to stir the gravy and drip a sample into your tasting-spoon. Your tasting-spoon never goes into the gravy. Your stirring-spoon never gets near your mouth. Problem solved! Mom also used pan drippings (for flavour) to make her roux and the hot water from the boiled potatoes and other vegs instead of stock to thin the gravy. Delicious gravy!!
@@wilfbentley6738 Or better yet, you could eat the whole thing.❤️
I have used your stirring spoon + tasting spoon technique for years, in gravy making, jam making, whatever. My mother was a nurse so she trained us well.
^-----THIS
We use a small dish like the ones used for soy sauce and taste from that. The wide shallow mouth allows for colour checking as well as faster cooling to taste correctly. And no contamination.
That’s what I do!
I prefer the dark gravy...but as you mentioned it won't thicken as much. To counteract this, when my roux is almost to the point I want I will add a few tablespoons more of flour. Cook it off enough to get rid of the raw flour taste. Voila, a dark and thick gravy. Thanks again for your channel I love your in-depth explanations !
Excellent tip. Much easier than what I do, which is to deeply roast some vegetables (carrots and onions mainly) that go into the stock. But as you guessed, it’s easy to burn them.
Interesting method! I just use a lot more flour from the start and take all of it to a chocolatey color. It still thickens up fine, and I get all of those toasty flour flavors.
My trick for a slightly darker gravy that adds great flavor is to add soy sauce. Importantly, do this before adding salt or your gravy will be too salty. Adds good salt and umami
Fascinating! Helen, your video demonstrations are always interesting and thought provoking, but this one is borderline riveting!! We are thankful for you. Much love to you and to your family! Be well.
The “all-purpose” gravy Kenji Lopez-Alt developed for Cooks Illustrated years ago is still my Thanksgiving go-to. I’ve made gravy the hard way, with turkey stock/drippings, but I always come back to the all-purpose recipe. It uses premade stock/broth and can also be made ahead and frozen, which is a huge advantage.
I wonder if the gravy made with butter would brown if clarified butter is used...
@@Elena-mk6bf it will, but it will start darkening sooner because there's no water from the get go.
I'm an engineer and beer brewer, so I learned about alpha & beta amylase regarding beer mashing, and the principles carried over to cooking perfectly well. With mash, you crush grain, add hot water, and let it soak, converting starches to sugars. There's alpha and beta amylase and each works at different temperature ranges: beta is 131F-149F, alpha is 145F-158F. For a 90% conversion, heat your slurry/mash in stages, starting with beta for 30 mins and alpha at 15 mins. I use 140F and 153F when doing step mashing. If you're in a hurry (e.g. cooking), do a single step conversion at 153F, and the longer you hold this temp, the more conversion you'll get, just don't go over an hour or you'll start getting off-flavors. Myself, when cooking with a flour+water slurry, I heat my mixture to 153F for 15mins and it's good enough. :)
You speak soooooooooooooooo WELL. Oh my goodness.
I'm so mesmerized.
I love this episode! This was the best combination of science, detective work, and cooking!
Really interesting video! And thanks for your candor with the saliva. Anyone who might be shocked is clearly not.a cook themselves!
Yes I’m amazed she had the courage to put this out.
I have had the issue of thinning gravy and other sauces/soups and have NOT been able to figure it out despite lots of experimenting. Thank you SO MUCH for this!
May seem a minor issue to some BUT a huge issue to me. I am a gravy perfectionist. I did not know about amylase in saliva! What an eye opener. Thank you, Helen. ⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️
🤯 My partner always double-dips with the spoon and it grosses me out slightly. Now I have a great reason to mention why it's a bad idea! Who knew such a small amount of amylase could make a difference?! I love gravy, and there were so many good tips about how to make it properly. Thanks, Helen, for another video that I learned so much from!
Trust me just about every resturaunt you've ever eaten at does it. Agree though pretty disgusting but in your case that's your partner so be honest if they have gingivitis.
@@bender49ers Yeah, I believe you about the restaurants, but rather not think about that! 😝
Another 10/10 video Helen.
From a once professional (though short career) Chef, to now the main home cook for 3 families, I thank you greatly for the information and research you do.
Well I tried your advice and your absolutely correct!! Dont use the same spoon to taste the gravy!! What a difference!! Amazing!! Love your show!! Keep going!!
It's a rare day I disagree with you, Ms. Rennie, but if you've never had "brown gravy", which is gravy thickened with a dark roux, you haven't had gravy yet. Chicken stock is particularly excellent when spiced and thickened with dark roux. Likewise, beef stock gets a deeper flavor than is achievable any other way when you make beef gravy with it. You do need more, and it does take a long time to get the roux to that stage, but it's so worth it.
Glad other folks piped in to mention this. I attempted Thanksgiving gravies year after year and was never satisfied with the flavor. I tried compensating with salt or herbs or acid, and even MSG, but it just didn't sing. Then one year I finally tried a dark roux and I found EXACTLY what it was missing! Oh I don't think I will ever go back to a blonde gravy ever again.
Can you make a dark roux in large quantities and freeze?
Amylase isn't the only way to degrade starch. Acid will also do it. This paper found that 24 hours at 4 °C and 5 pH was enough to reduce the viscosity by half. doi: 10.1007/s13197-013-0998-7
Wine typically has a pH of between 3 and 4. Depending on alkalinity of your stock and ratio of ingredients, this could easily be sufficient to explain your thinning gravy without involving any saliva.
You may also consider reading "Texture - A hydrocolloid recipe collection" by Martin Lersch; A cookbook which details appropriate conditions for a variety of thickeners, including stability or lack thereof in acid.
acidic hydrolysis was also the first thing I thought of when I heard that sauces with water didn't thin out whereas sauces with other stuff like wine did. I wasn't sure how well it works on starches and other polysaccharides, but I do know that adding a little water and acid to melting sugar or caramel does split a bit of the sucrose into monosaccharides, thereby filling the same function as adding corn syrup would in preventing crystals from forming.
Thanks! I was worried about acidity too, but the second gravy made with the same exact ingredients (including wine) and beurre manie didn't thin out. Thanks for the book suggestion. I'll look it up :)
what about adding a little bourbon (Wild Turke) to my gravy while I make it? Same reaction as wine?
@@spinningbackspin I wouldn't worry about bourbon. While the pH can be similar to wine, the titratable acidity of whiskey is typically 10% that of wine. Combined with the fact that spirits tend to be used in smaller volume than wine and the effect on pH of the gravy is too small to matter.
I make a simple gravy maybe a couple times a year. So, I really tuned in to see you how you handle roux, and WOW! I learned so much! No more repeat tastings from one spoon. And thanks for the ratios. You really outdid yourself here. Happy Thanksgiving!
This was such a helpful video. Just in time for Thanksgiving gravy making. Many years ago I fed my little one commercially prepared baby food, usually directly from the jar. She'd only eat half of a tiny jar at a meal. The second day, the food much thinner. It took me awhile to realize those strained peaches were predigested! That being said, I'm not a fan of re-using tasting spoons without a wash.
Thanks for another terrific video!
Your painstaking analysis of cooking problems makes things much simpler in my humble home kitchen.
Thanks again, and all the best to you and your family this Holiday season!
My brother, an avid cook, got the idea to keep a small container full of cheap teaspoons next to the stove as tasting spoons. Use once, put in the dishwasher. He keeps 10-12 cheap metal teaspoons next to his stove in a nice ceramic container. He said it's easier than having to wash off the spoon every time he wants to taste something or his wife wants to taste something. Just grab a fresh teaspoon from the contain.
I so enjoy your channel, and the very interesting comments as well. You've attracted a very informed audience. I'm a retired dentist, and at the risk of being thought flippant, I'll say that as dentists we say, "Spit Happens!" Just having fun. Love your cooking suggestions.
Helen this was very interesting and I learned a lot about making gravy. I can see myself coming back to re-watch your video in the future. Happy Turkey Day 🦃
I LOVE your honesty and testing. I enjoy
What a magnificent video. I wish I could hug you. I’m one of those serious home cooks obsessed with serving clean food. Tasting spoons are a big deal. I use cheap ones from the dollar store and have about 30 in a close reach jar by my stove. They are used only once. Respecting your guests is important. NOT serving them your spit is very important. Again fantastic video. Thank you!!!
I noticed this several years ago with many products, for example, yoghurt, or pudding. I never thought this was a revelation, I just stopped using the same spoon, and always use a fresh one for anything and everything, if I have to taste it more than once.
Thanks. It's always fun to learn more about sauces. I'm slowly getting there.
I love how much detail and effort you put in Helen, that was totally fascinating and instructional. Happy Thanksgiving from the UK 🇬🇧
Once again, thank you. Helen for an amazing video. I had to laugh at your mea culpa on the tasting spoon issue. I never would have guessed that saliva from a tasting spoon would have that effect.
This is so important and your honesty is awesome and refreshing! Thanks Helen!🙂✨
Thank you so much for posting this video - Amylase - who knew. Excelling information!
That's super interesting. I often double the recipe and I noticed the sauce is more liquid for the following meal. Thanks so much for this info, I will make sure to be careful from now on. I also saw years ago a video about baby food and how it was more liquid the next day due to the baby's saliva.
And that's why our mothers and grandmothers frowned opon returning a spoon used for tasting back into the dish.
Happy thanks giving from Egypt
I've always appreciated your extreme attention to detail.
Fantastic video highlighting sensible practices. Loved it. Thank you.
Thank you for this video-it's so good! I loved learning why the butter stops bubbling and the effect it has. I'm so glad I saw this video. By the way, in one of my Julia Child books, she says to add the hot stock to the roux, so I have always done it that way.
Thank you, Helen. Happy Thanksgiving! 🦃
Great episode! Thanks!
As LBJ said, "Don't spit in the soup (or gravy), we all have to eat." This was very ineresting and helpful. I could earily see making the same mustake.
Thank you for the tip to add warm liquid! 😂 No wonder my gravy takes forever 🤦♀️
Helen, I like how you approach to cooking as a science! Here is my thinking regarding thickening of gravy: dissolving flour in butter requires too much butter which would make gravy too greasy. My mom taught me to gently fry flour without any fat to get rid of the raw flour flavor, cool it down and then use it for gravy. It takes about 10 minutes to brown flour without any fat in a frying pan, to a nice golden color.
My shortcut to a dark cajun roux is to toast the flour in a 350 degree oven until it is noticeably darker. It will get much darker after adding fat, so I check by wetting samples with water. A medium nut brown flour will make a nearly chocolate colored roux. I make large batches of this and store it for later. No need to cook the flour in the fat, just mix it together and you're set.
@ That is a good idea! About how long does it take you to brown flour in oven? Do you stir it during toasting it?
@@Elena-mk6bf Yes, I stir it. I use a big baking pan with a lip and spread the flour out as much as possible. I want to get as much surface exposed to the heat as possible. Once it starts darkening, it will move quickly. Be ready with a white plate and a container with water to test its doneness. Once you are happy with the "wet color", take it out of the oven and cool it before storing. This will have much less thickening power than white roux, so you can always add some white roux or that flour/butter combination if you need more thickening. Maybe that's why they use gumbo file (sasafrass) in Louisiana to thicken...
@@Elena-mk6bfsorry, I forgot to answer your question. At 350 it takes me about 40 minutes, but it depends on several factors - how much flour you have in the pan, how thick the layer, how often you stir it.
The good thing is that you can prepare enough for several batches of gumbo and keep it till you need it. And you don’t have to stand over the stove stirring your roux hoping that you won’t burn it.
@@trackie1957 "Not standing over the stove" nails it 👍🏻
I am guessing 40 minutes is for about 2 cups of flour?
I've made the same experience with home-made pudding (not the British kind). A FOMO portion ended up being too much for me to eat, so I put the left-overs back into the fridge. It turned into a disgusting puddle.
The correlation to my saliva was clear, I just never bothered to figure out exactly how. Thank you for your video!
Wow, I’ve learned a lot from this video, also it brought back memories from when my kids were babies and I experienced the same thing with baby food. After feeding them I would refrigerate any left overs. The next day when I warmed it up it was watery. Come to find out it was saliva that caused the watery consistency of the jarred baby food.
Interesting topic. I've never had a gravy thin out but I have had pastry cream thin out and not allow the cream to thicken. I kind of knew it had something to do with how long the eggs got cooked but didn't know that it was amylase that needed to be deactivated. Thank you for that. On the gravy topic I was hoping this video would show me how to thicken a gravy without starch, flour or any carbohydrate. This may not be possible.
Love how you bring the science to beautiful cooking❤
Great video!
I made a stew recipe that used powdered gelatin to thicken it. Advantage was that it stayed thick the next day, unlike corn starch.
I wonder if gelatin can be used for gravy.
Just wanted to mention to everyone if someone might not be aware about a special kind of flour to thicken gravy called Wondra flour. Wondra flour is made using a special process called pregelatinization. This process involves cooking the flour with steam and then drying it out. Here's how it works: Pregelatinization Process: Cooking with Steam: The flour is cooked with steam, which causes the starches in the flour to gelatinize. This means the starches absorb water and swell, making them easier to dissolve when mixed with liquids later. Drying: After the flour is cooked, it is then dried back into a powder form. This drying process ensures that the flour remains in a form that can be easily measured and stored, while still retaining its instant dissolving properties. Benefits: No Clumping: Because the starches in Wondra flour are already gelatinized, it dissolves instantly in hot or cold liquids without forming lumps. Smooth Texture: It creates a smooth, consistent texture in gravies, sauces, and other dishes.Versatile: It can also be used for dredging meats for a light coating before frying or for thickening soups and stews. This process makes Wondra flour particularly useful for quickly thickening gravies and sauces with a smooth finish.
wow!...that is fascinating!....always get a new spoon!
Learning that salivary amylase can digest the starch in a roux-based gravy or sauce that has been heated to a simmer is _wild._ I'd long assumed that an enzyme which works optimally at just below body temperature would be _completely denatured_ at a temperature near boiling. Thanks for your contribution to culinary science!
I you boiled the sauce for a full minute after tasting it, I believe that would deactivate amylase, but if you tasted it after taking it off the heat and put the spoon back in, the amylase will do its thinning job.
Ohh Helen! Yet another fantastic video. Your attention to detail is so very much appreciated. You're an outstanding chef! And you're so dammed cute.
Please continue with your wonderful videos and amazing culinary intuition.
I often add a stock cube from Knorr called «Doble Caldo» which can be bought in Spain. It’s on my shopping list on my aunual Grsn Canaria trip.
Thanks for this video Helen.
When I make Norwegian brown sauce or gravy, I like to add some brown cheese. It adds a nice color and I love the caramelized taste. It also helps with texture. Not everyone likes to eat the brown cheese as it is, but as an ingredient in sauces, it's extremely underestimated. By the way, it's sold in the US under the name «Ski Queen».
Hi there, I also wanted to add something here because I haven't seen anyone mention it! The Amylase from you mouth is α-Amylase. It functions best at neutral to slightly Acidic PH (That is to say 7-6). Starch works optimally at 7 PH as well BUT can still work at a PH of 5.5! And so if you want to set that gravy back up and you have something to measure your PH and reduce the PH down (for example Lemon Juice?) and then add the starch back to gel your gravy! This will greatly improve the life of your thickened gravy
...but at that point... You've measured the PH and cooked it twice...
It's a lot of effort...
Fascinating about the amylase!
I have my 7th grade science teacher to thank for teaching me about amylase. I take a spoon and drip sauces onto a small dish (to quickly cool it), or onto my finger (if it’s cool enough) 😂😂 But you tasting the sauce several times because it tasted really good, is so relatable LOL
Who knew? I always thought it was about the 'germs' and tried not to double-dip a tasting spoon into gravy/sauce I'm serving to family and friends. Did not realize I was also saving the day on gravy consistency at the same time :)
Great tricks! Thank you!
Thank you, as always, for a well thought out and educational video. Here’s my question: Whenever a recipe calls for a roux, the author makes a big deal about cooking out the “raw flour” taste. Somehow that that goes out the window when they call for a beurre manié. So… what’s the deal with that?
Great tips - Thanks. - Cheers!
I've simmered roux sauce for 2 hours. No thinning after cooling, though it was an absurd amount of sauce so maybe that matters. The saliva thing was incredibly interesting.
so interesting! would never have thought about the cause and relate this vid to one by Pailin's channel 'hot thai kitchen' where jok (congee/rice porridge) will suffer the same fate from a double dipper😊😅
This happens when you eat a bowl of grits. By the end of the bowl, the grits have thinned.
Easier to flush down the drain, which should be done with all grits rather than eating them🤷🏼♀️
Mmm grits…… adding lots of cheese keeps their texture 😊😊😊😊
We thin the grits... but they don't thin us. 😢😢😢😢😢
What are grits? All I'm getting from google is that they're oats/oatmeal. But you also have oatmeal, so what's the difference? 🤔
@@cococreates26 Grits are parts of the corn kernel thats been treated with a chemical to make it digestible. Theyre absolutely terrible.
Fantastic video! The amylase in the saliva is a salient point.
I've always considered starch thickened sauces to be less flavorful than other thickening methods. The starch seems to steal/dilute flavor from the sauce more. I try to rely on gelatin, xanthan gum, caramelized onions, and melting cold butter to maintain the emulsion, which doesn't seem to detract any of the flavor. I wonder, what is the argument for using starch? Low cost and easy availability? Toasty flavors from browning the roux? I usually don't lack for Maillard flavor in my sauces from ample browning of the meat and fond.
I think it's the quantity of the sauce. Most of my pan sauces don't use any starch and just rely on gelatin, but they are very intense and putting a ladle of them all over your mashed potatoes could be too much. I usually use them in small amounts. Gravy is used more liberally and it's intended to be more creamy and less syrupy.
thanks for the tips!
Great video! Thank you.
Wondra flour is a great hack for thickening gravy. It's pre-gelatinized so it doesn't clump, even when you add it into hot gravy.
Very interesting video. Thankyou . Does the beurre Maine have the same flour /butter ratio as the roux ?
Yes. The exact ratio is not important. I measured things carefully for this experiment, but normally I eyeball.
D'Oh!!! Your Honor, I plead Guilty. I will never again reuse a spoon to taste gravy. Amazing all the little things there are to learn.
Amylase is a catalyst. a single protein could remove all the starch given enough time., as the process does not use up the enzyme. More Amylase means faster starch degradation, any amount will degrade all the starch given enough time.
Actually it would depend on nothing else degrading the amylase for a single molecule, but the point stands for even a couple micrograms.
this is excellent insight... and school science fair project is just around the corner :) cheers!
Due to family with gluten issues, I always have to search up how much of various starches to use... Usually potato since I read that it last better for storage. I make a gallon of gravy for thanksgiving every year, but always forget make note of the amount of starch...
@Helen Rennie, have you since made a starch based gravy without double dipping. If so, did it reheat well the next day from the fridge?
Yes, I did. It reheated fine.
Thank you!
My mom, and hence me, always use a flour slurry to adjust gravy's consistency. You have to stir/whisk as you add it, and bring it to a boil for a minute. I'd be interested to hear what you think of this.
Helen, can you do an investigation on the thickening performance and taste effects of different types of thickeners for gravy? Cornstarch slurry, for example, does not need to be cooked and is great for soups, but I wonder if it's good for gravy.
I've also been trying to learn more about how different starches may have different effects. It's a really interesting subject (IMHO).
I use cornstarch for gravy (AKA Cornflour in the UK) and my family have for decades. I believe some use potato starch or arrowroot - I know some of them hold their thickness better than others, but can't remember which have the best properties.
@helenrennie - do you ever use different starches other than wheat flour for thickening? And am I correct in assuming wheat starch is most popular because it seems to add a bit of taste compared to the others?
Thanks for this.
I normally use cornstarch, but this is interesting.
Cornstarch will definitely thin out after it cools.
Hi helen, great video again, thanks.
Sauce making requires: hot roux - cold stock, cold roux- hot stock, cold roux - cold stock. Never ever hot roux - hot stock.
When I was an apprentice I already learned not to stick your finger in the salpicon pot. Even that could ruin your salpicon. It happened to me of course and it can be a costly mistake. Even split-pea soup has the nasty habbit to thin out if you use the same tasting spoon opr taste with your fingers.
Luckily people don't thin out after kissing, lol.
You did not explain why you shouldn't heat the roux and the stock.
@@tjorb Hot stock on a hot roux will encapsulate roux parts guickly and create lumps that can no longer absorb the stock. Warm on warm is possible but you have to stirr vigilantly which will create gluten (and sugar) which are not wanted in your sauce.
Hi Helen! I LOVE when you do deep dives like this. One thing I have never seen (and have not tried-YET) is using a roux powder with butter as a beurre manié. Roux powder is simply flour toasted, either in the oven or in a dry stainless steel skillet, until the desired color is reached (you have to add a few drops of water to see the actual color the flour has gotten to) and then cooled for later use-MUCH easier and less nerve-wracking than cooking a traditional dark roux. I first heard of this from a recipe published by the Times-Picayune of New Orleans newspaper for Thanksgiving Gumbo (made from leftovers), and later from Cook's Illustrated for one of their gumbo recipes. I have been wondering how a blond roux powder used in a beurre manié might taste, and how it might be easier to get the flavor alongside the thickening power of a lighter roux. It might be possible to combine a darker blond powder with plain flower to get the best of both worlds-a beurre manié with both the flavor of a darker roux and the thickening power of a light roux without having to make two different rouxes. Please let me know what you think about the concept. Thanks again for all of your wonderful cooking videos, and I hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday season!
Interesting. Thanks for letting me know about this concept. I haven't heard about it before, but I'll read up on it.
@@helenrennie Hi Helen! I haven't ever seen this anywhere else either-it honestly was just something that popped into my head one day when thinking about (I promise I'm not making this up) the difficulties my brother sometimes has with making Thanksgiving gravy! I have some pretty dark (cinnamon color) roux powder from another recipe, and I will try to make a few other shades and see what happens on my end.
@@helenrennie Every year my botanical group has a foraging lunch, including our favorite 'soupe à la farine rotie' or browned flour soup. We add the flour to a pot over medium heat, and stir it constantly with a wooden spoon until it matches the spoon. Then stir in stock and seasonings, and at the last minute, your favorite foraged greens - chickweed in our case, but dandelion, sow thistle, amaranth, or any other lettuce-like texture works fine.
This is a traditional dish from the east of France/Switzerland. You can also toast the flour spread on a baking sheet in the oven. I have observed that the darker the flour, the less thickening power it has.
My late Mother-in-Law used toasted flour like this.
I've tried the flour toasting trick before for gumbo and whatnot. It is an interesting idea, and I guess if you frequently make a lot of dark roux dishes it can be helpful, but I found it way more fussy to brown and stir the flour in the skillet or oven than to just make the roux the traditional way. Plus it took an even longer time making the roux powder.
Helen, I’ve been watch in for years! Thanks for continuing to provide excellent cooking advice!
We make our gravy on the Monday before Thanksgiving. Most make-ahead gravy’s call for a roux, but there are other ways to thicken.
In his Coniac Turkey Gravy video, Chef Jean Pierre shows a technique where he makes a fortified stock, puts a sieve into the pot so that the bottom is submerged, adds raw flour to the sieve, and whisks it into the stock. The gravy is cooked for a few hours, so the raw flour is cooked off. Have you tried this technique? How might it affect the thickening of the gravy?
I was waiting for you to talk about other thickening agents such as a cornstarch slurry or arrowroot. Is there a reason you don’t use those methods or prefer using beurre manié?
Finally, I imagine the reason for bringing the gravy to a boil when adding beurre manié is to ensure the flour is cooked off. How long should the gravy boil (or is it completely cooked off when the gravy comes to a boil)?
I haven't tried Jean Pierre method -- it sounds like a standard french brown sauce (stock, wine, and flour simmered for a long time). The flour will lose some thickening power, but the amount he uses probably takes that into account.
Other thickening agents: cornstarch will thin out upon reheating. Other than that, it works. Arrowroot. It's a nice thickening agent, but not many people have it on hand. The only advantage those two have over flour is that they are gluten free. If you cooking for someone who is gluten free, you can just use gluten free flour in a standard roux or beurre manie. I haven't tested that, but Cook's Illustrated has and they reported good results. You bring a sauce to a boil after adding beurre manie in order for it to thicken. Neither roux, nor beurre manie will fully work until you reach a boil. Once the sauce thickens, the flour taste is cooked off. Those two happen simultaneously.
@ THANK YOU for the detailed response. I didn’t realize corn starch doesn’t maintain its thickening power. I’ll have to keep closer attention.
Welp… the turkey arrived on Friday and I’ll have to see if it’s ready for spatchcocking. 🎼 Off spatchcocking I go! Off spatchcocking I go! Hi-ho the derry-o… 🎼 .
As always, thanks for your guidance. “And may the odds be ever in your favor!”
My sister told me a long time ago that saliva will begin digesting any food it comes into contact with. Since then, I’ve always tried to remember to keep my tasting spoons out of the food!
I am terrible at gravy so this is great!
Hello, I always use Maïzena, works great.
Corn starch, as it's known.
Cornstarch. Is that ever used in gravy? I use it quite often in Asian dishes as some stir frys give up a lot of liquid, so not quite a gravy.
It will make the gravy shiny and glossy....most people (Americans, at least) dont associate that with t-giving gravy.🤷🏼♀️
also it doesn't stay thick if you refrigerate and reheat it
Cornstarch is great, but it doesn't stay thick for long so can only be use toward the end of cooking for sauces that you won't be reheating.
Cornstarch makes a tasty gluten free alternative, but it's finicky! Boiling the gravy too rapidly or for more than 7 minutes causes thinning. Optimum time to boil it is one to three minutes.
Thank you.
you could also talk about xanthan somewhat easy to get nowadays
Why not use corn starch?? works for me!!
Okay I have noticed this phenomenon with creamy soups! By the end of eating a bowl of those kinds of soups, it’s always weirdly thin and I’ve alwaaaaays wondered why that happens.
What happened to cold stock hot roux no lumps?
Different chef, different advice.
My tip is to taste with two spoons - a teaspoon to dip into the liquid to be tasted, and a big table spoon which is used to sip. When you pour the sample from the teaspoon onto the tablespoon, not only does this eliminate the chance of any saliva being returned to the pan, but the extra mass in the tablespoon disipates heat, meaning you can even taste-test a boiling liquid without burning your mouth. Just make sure the tablespoon never goes near the pan!
bigger metal spoon to receive the tasting sample and cool it faster!
completely obvious now that you say it but i never thought of it! also, slightly less chance of spills dumping a smaller spoonful into a larger spoon
@@walterw2 Yup, took me fifty years to figure it out, but now I'm like "Doh!"
I like to go pretty dark with my roux and add some beurre manie, just love that dark roux flavor
Helen always uses the scientific approach. That’s why I trust her.
6:59 why not just say use 4 tsp flour and 4 tsp butter? seems easier
Hi, why flower instead of corn starch. Less cooking out i think. ❤
Question! Last year I made a gravy with a darker roux, about chocolate shade, and I knew going in that it wouldn't thicken the gravy but it did taste really good, but thickening it was a challenge.
My question is, how would you advise going about thickening a gravy made with dark roux?
I would remove some roux earlier and reserve it. Then cook part of your roux to the dark stage. Add the lighter roux back in and add your liquid. Alternatively, add some beurre manie in the end.
@helenrennie awesome! Thank you so much!
Not sure if this helps, but I did the same chocolatey roux last year and it thickened up just fine, but you have to use a lot more flour to compensate. I followed Jacob Burton's gravy (you can search it on TH-cam) and it came out beautifully. I used 225 grams of flour for a 1/2 gallon of gravy, which is almost exactly double the ratio for Helen's blonde roux amounts. Plus, this means I get to add some more yummy turkey fat to my gravy! 🤤
@@dirtyketchup thanks for the tip! I actually already follow Burton but I haven't used his gravy recipe :)
I had an issue last week when I made a blueberry pie recipe from Joy of cooking. It called for five cups of blueberries (annoying since they are sold by the ounce) and four tablespoons of cornstarch (upper of the range.) It ended up watery. I tried heating it more the next day but it never thickened. I still don't know if I should have used more cornstarch or cooked it longer. Ugh!
I did sn experiment.
I made clam chowder nice and thick with a roux.
I ate from the small kettle is was cooked in.
The next day it was thinned out.
Could I make a very dark roux for flavour and then just add beurre manié for thickness?
A roux question just occurred to me based on part of your video: As I understand it, a roux is equal parts flour and fat, right? I've always thought it doesn't matter what fat you use - butter, vegetable oil, etc. But you reminded me that a lot of butter is part water, so wouldn't this mean that to get equal parts flour and fat I should use more butter than flour?
Thank you for the informative video, BTW! I usually make gravy only at Thanksgiving, and I always kind of play it by ear and make guesses at proportions, technique, etc, just hoping for the best. I can approach it this year with more confidence!
It doesn't need to be equal parts fat and flour. You just need enough fat for the flour to move around the pan comfortably without forming a very dense clump.