Day 7 of 12: Essential Cuisine Turkey Gravy Review

Essential Cuisine makes award winning stocks and premium gravies and this Christmas, they have launched a new Turkey Gravy to accompany your roast dinners with all of the trimmings. Seasoned with a hint of sage to boost its savoury goodness, the gravy can be made in advance and stirred into the cooking liquid.

And even better, it’s currently reduced by 20% on their website and is just £2 for for a 76g pot which gives 1L of gravy! You can find their site here.

The preparation for this gravy is different to gravy granules. 3 teaspoons of the Turkey Gravy powder is whisked into 250ml of water in a pan and brought to the boil while stirring continuously until it thickens. For this reason, when I first made the gravy, I thought it was going wrong and I hadn’t followed the recipe correctly. However soon the colour of the gravy changes and it begins to look promising. Not only that, the aroma coming from the pan is completely reminiscent of a Christmas dinner. I’m excited to taste it.

It’s certainly nothing like gravy made from gravy granules which is a deep dark brown colour with a strong meaty profile (which, whilst satisfying, can actually be quite overpowering). And since this gravy is made for turkey, which is a delicate meat, you don’t want any strong flavours. However I’m a big fan of gravy and so I decided to use it in different meals just to prove its versatility.

Check out Jamie’s Cookery’s Turkey Shepherd’s Pie which also uses Essential Cuisine Turkey Gravy!

I paired it firstly with a breaded chicken breast with roasted garlic asparagus and Yorkshire puddings (not homemade unfortunately!). The gravy was mopped up perfectly by the Yorkshires and the chicken and complimented both the garlicky asparagus and the chicken well.

For the asparagus, I snap off the woody ends and place them in the centre of a square of foil. Season with salt and pepper and add some finely chopped garlic. Drizzle over 1 tablespoon of olive oil, and seal the foil parcel up and give it a shake to coat. Place into a preheated oven at 200˚C and bake for 12 – 15 minutes, depending on how thick the stems are. I like my asparagus to have a tiny bit of crunch but you can adjust the cooking time to your preference.

This Christmas, I want you to take your leftover turkey or chicken and transform it into a brand new meal and not just a soggy leftover sandwich! Keep on hand some potatoes and some leeks and some of the cranberry sauce and you have yourself my Leftover Christmas Potato Cakes.

Reinventing the leftovers is always a challenge but these potato cakes will be a warm and comforting meal that you can easily make ahead and freeze too! I wouldn’t recommend using leftover roast potatoes because their crunchy and crisp exterior needs to be savoured, but have a few large potatoes on hand to make these potato cakes.

Boil 450g of potatoes in a pan of salted water until they are soft and tender. Drain the excess water and allow to cool. Chop the potatoes up, remove as much of the skin as you can and mash the potato until it is relatively lump free. Fry off 1 leek, chopped into half moons, in some butter until it is soft and translucent and season with salt and pepper. Add to the potatoes.

Mix through 1 egg, 2 tablespoons of plain flour, 200g leftover meat which has been shredded, and 50g of cranberry sauce. It should form a soft but not sticky dough which can be shaped into potato cakes; I got 9 out of this mixture. Fry off the potato cakes in some oil (or butter if you prefer) until they are browned well on both sides; you may need to wipe down the pan between frying as they do have a slight tendency to break apart.