little_tippler

How I like to make gravy for red meats:

After roasting whatever red meat you favour (beef, lamb), deglaze the roasting tin over the stove by adding about a glass of red wine. Leave to simmer and until the alcohol has evaporated. Then add a little cornstarch dissolved in warm water (about a dessert spoonful of cornstarch to a 1/3 of a glass of water or less) to what you have so far. At the end, add more or less cornstarch and water if you feel that the gravy has reduced too much. At the very end, stir in a few good lumps of butter. Serve!

For chicken I don't add red wine, but instead of just adding some water you could add a little cognac or some chicken stock for extra flavour. The rest of it is the same as above. Hope this helps

__________________
Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.

Fernando Pessoa, 1918