Turkey or Ham Gravy

Holiday time is approaching! Heeeeeere's Gravy!

Keep in mind this does not look like restaurant yellow turkey/chicken gravy. It is a darker brown and much better tasting.

You can do the whole “boil the neck” thing…but I don’t. It takes forever, uses up your saucepan which you always need for something else when you're cooking a holiday meal, and then you have to pick pick pick the small amount of meat off. I think this was a “depression” thing where they used every bit of meat they had, God bless 'em!
I also don't use any "innards" in gravy...but you can cut up the heart and liver and add it if you want. I choose not to, I use drippings and shredded dark meat as my base for turkey gravy.

Turkey Gravy:
Take as much of the turkey drippings from the turkey roaster to get the amount of gravy you want. Err on the side of too much gravy, especially if your turkey ends up a little dry. Try to skim off some fat, but leave some fat in, I wish I had one of those separators. Taste it, if it’s too salty, dilute with water (it usually is not too salty at this point, usually I have to add salt) Put it in a saucepan, bring to a boil. Add dark meat shreds, shredded quite fine. If you have a decent sized turkey, just pick the meat off of the back area, shred it and put in the gravy. TASTE IT again. Add thyme, poultry seasoning, salt, onion powder, pepper if needed. Add chicken broth if you need to stretch it. Taste taste taste, taste again! It should taste like slightly strong, yummy gravy because you are going to dilute the flavor a little by thickening it. Two mistakes people make: 1) Not making it strong flavored enough with drippings and spices BUT…. 2) don’t over-salt it. So it should taste good like you want the gravy to taste but slightly strong because you’re going to dilute it a little. Mix cornstarch with water, I start with about ¾ cup cold water and put 2 heaping tablespoons cornstarch in the water, mix well, for my 4 qt saucepan full of gravy. Add the cornstarch mixture to the gravy, boil to thicken, if you need it thicker, do another 1/4 cup cold water with one tablespoon cornstarch.

Ham Gravy:
Have a plan beforehand when it comes to ham. Do you want gravy or are you serving something other than mashed potatoes? If you want potatoes and gravy, you have to strain off the ham drippings BEFORE you glaze the ham. You don't want honey gravy. Bleh.

Baste your ham one last time, then drain off the drippings into a saucepan. Taste the drippings and add chicken broth or water to dilute the salty flavor. Ham is salty. Ham gravy is salty. But you have to dilute the ham broth somewhat or it's waaaaay too salty for gravy. Taste it, add pepper and accent if needed. You can add some thyme if you want and maybe one drop of liquid smoke. Taste taste taste, it should taste like strong gravy flavor, but watch the saltiness. Depending on how much gravy base you have, thicken as needed with cornstarch/cold water mixture. Start with ½ cup cold water with one heaping tablespoon cornstarch. Boil to thicken. If that's not thick enough, do it again with 1/4 cup water with one tablespoon cornstarch and continue from there.