Anyone made their own gravy powder?

[DavidT]

Hi

I've often thought I should produce and store my own gravy powder - has anyone done this? Any ideas, anyone?

David

[harpy]

What for? (Just being nosy as I've never used gravy powder and don't really know what it's for.)

I guess you know that you can buy vegan gravy powder, but you're interested in a home-made version. Looking at the ingredients of this commercial one may give you some ideas? http://www.veggiestuff.com/acatalog/redwood_cheatin_vegan_gravy_powder.html

[lastx]

The commercial ones are mainly caramel and thickeners. You could make gravy and spend a lot of money to buy a machine to spray dry it but wouldn't go to all of the bother and expense to be quite honest.

[DavidT]

Redwood ingredients: Potato starch, Maltodextrin, Wheat Flour, Salt, Flavourings, Malt extract, Onion Powder & Dried sage. Hmmm....

We usually buy Marigold Organic, which is flour, maltodextrin, corn starch, yeast extract, sea salt, palm oil (!), tomato, onion, sugar and caramel.

"What for", harpy? What do you do for gravy? :)

lastx: that sounds a lot of trouble. I wasn't thinking along those lines.

What I was thinking was, we have a lot of tomatoes, which can be dried and ground, maybe mixed with a few dried herbs and some brown flour, some yeast extract, salt, pepper, and whatever.

I dunno. We don't use/buy much but it's always there, I was thinking, most of what I'm buying here is packaging. Why bother? Why not make my own? :o

[sandra]

I make my own roast onion gravy by just roasting onions and mixing with some flour and adding a little mustard powder and marigold vegan stock powder and soy sauce. Are you wanting to make a dry powder or just your own gravy David? :)

[DavidT]

That's almost how I make gravy at the moment, sandra; I was hoping to make a dry powder - basically the three dry ingredients you use! :bigsmile: but I hope to incorporate any (dried) ingredients we have plenty of (tomatoes, courgettes etc).

[sandra]

Oh I see David! :)
It's a great idea to make your very own 'dried' gravy powder. It would be so convenient just to lift it out of the cupboard and mix with water to make a delicious vegan gravy.
What if we used a mix of mustard powder, vegetable stock powder, onion powder, flour etc....................I'm going to experiment and get back to you! :) xxx

[harpy]

If I want gravy I usually do it in a similar way to Sandra, but I generally use water and a splash of wine rather than the stock, unless I have time to make fresh stock, because I'm not very keen on the taste of bouillon powder, even Marigold. Also I often incorporate other vegetables such as mushrooms along with the onions.

I never ever use flour because my father was French and taught me that flour in gravy was the devil's work ;) (My mother used to put it in when he wasn't looking and it used to cause enormous ructions.)

Maybe you could chop and dry your surplus veg and just add them to freshly made gravy, David? That would probably turn out nicer than maltodextrin etc.

[DavidT]

If I want gravy I usually do it in a similar way to Sandra, but I generally use water and a splash of wine rather than the stock, unless I have time to make fresh stock, because I'm not very keen on the taste of bouillon powder, even Marigold. Also I often incorporate other vegetables such as mushrooms along with the onions.

I never ever use flour because my father was French and taught me that flour in gravy was the devil's work ;) (My mother used to put it in when he wasn't looking and it used to cause enormous ructions.)

Maybe you could chop and dry your surplus veg and just add them to freshly made gravy, David? That would probably turn out nicer than maltodextrin etc.

How did your father thicken the gravy, do you know?

I'd no intention of using 'maltodextrin', whatever it is, harpy! Maybe I wasn't clear but yes, what I want to do is dry and grind up certain excess veg to make this powder. I'm making a dehydrator at the moment.

[harpy]

He didn't want it thickened - that was the point! The French don't and neither do I, though I sometimes mash up some of the vegetables and include them to give it a bit of body.

I should think if you have a dehydrator it will be easy-peasy.

ETA I realise the above is a bit of a generalisation because there are probably some French people who thicken their gravy with flour, and they do have roux-based sauces that involve flour, but I think the "jus" type of sauce is the nearest equivalent to the gravy that is traditional in the British Isles and as far as I know that isn't meant to include flour. I won't go into any more details because it will get a bit carnivorous.

[DavidT]

I see, harpy!

The better half is a gravy monster: she would have gravy with everything if she could, thick, thin or whatever. Her father is the same. Me, I like eating with a fork, not a spoon!

From a tin of beans, she likes the sauce, I like the beans; we're well-matched that way. Often I use a slotted spoon to serve gravy for me - she just pours it on hers.

Anyway, we'll see what happens once I get dehydrating...

[harpy]

Sounds well worth investing in a gravy production line in that case! Let us know how you get on. I imagine adding herbs such as thyme to the mix would be a good wheeze?

[DavidT]

Yus, whatever herbs we have would be considered too; we have an area of garden which is practically all herbs and a few rocks, which absorb heat from the sun during the day and keep the surrounding temperature up during the night. The smell, when you or an animal walks through it, is divine! It's a haven for bees and butterflies too.

[harpy]

That sounds lovely. I have got a few and I can sometimes tell when there's a hedgehog around because of the smell of trampled-on thyme. The sage is the one that seems to have done best this year - it's huge. (Anyone know any good sage recipes?)

[khadagan]

Heya David,

Let us know if you ever found a nice gravy recipe in powder form, I would be very interested to know!!

Santa gave me a dehydrator this year and I found this link looking for a nice bouillon powder recipe, I hadn't thought of gravy powder yet, but I'll definately give that a go!

I make gravy myself usually with lots of onions, mushrooms, sometimes vegemite, any cooking liquid I have of whatever I'm cooking at the time, bit of salt, herbamare or soy sauce, cornstarch to thicken it up. A dried version I would make using dried powdered onions, dried powdered mushrooms, dried powdered garlic adding some of my homemade bouillon powder (which I have not made yet, but will make soon!), maybe some nutritional yeast (will help thicken it up as well), I wouldn't use salt, you can always add later.

Anyway, I'll be experimenting with this... :)