Chef Thomas
Anchovy Sauce
A proper white sauce sharpened with pounded anchovy, the old Georgian trick for waking up a piece of poached fish or a slice of roast lamb on a Sunday in spring.
Culinary Explorer
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Mushroom Gravy
Created by Chef Thomas
A dark, savoury gravy built from mushrooms browned hard in butter, loosened with stock and thyme, and poured over whatever needs the comfort of it on a cold evening.
Sauces & Condiments
British
Weeknight
Comfort Food
10 min
Active Time
30 min cook•40 min total
YieldEnough for 4, with a bit left for toast
October arrived in the kitchen this week. The light changed, the window started fogging by five, and the mushroom stall at the market suddenly had things on it that weren't there in August. Chestnut mushrooms in open trays. A few wild ones, foraged, priced accordingly. I brought home more than I needed and made this gravy by the time the kettle had boiled.
Mushroom gravy is one of those quietly useful things. It goes with a nut roast if that's your Sunday. It pools around a pie. It turns a plate of mashed potato into an actual meal. Spooned over toast with a poached egg on top, it's dinner on a Tuesday when you can't be bothered with anything else. I've leaned on it for years and it has never let me down.
The whole thing lives or dies on how hard you brown the mushrooms. This is the part people rush and shouldn't. You want them dark, concentrated, almost too far, with the butter gone nutty around them and the kitchen smelling of woods in autumn. Everything after that is just adding liquid and paying attention. Trust your nose. It knows before you do.
I wrote it down in the notebook once: mushrooms, butter, thyme, Wednesday, rain. That was all the recipe I needed that day. This is the longer version, for anyone who wants one.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
mixed mushrooms
Quantity
500g
chestnut, field, and a handful of wild if you can get them, roughly chopped
unsalted butter
Quantity
50g
olive oil
Quantity
1 tablespoon
onion
Quantity
1 medium
finely chopped
garlic
Quantity
2 cloves
finely chopped
fresh thyme
Quantity
a few sprigs
leaves picked
plain flour
Quantity
1 tablespoon
dry white wine or dry sherry
Quantity
100ml
good beef, chicken, or vegetable stock
Quantity
600ml
soy sauce or Worcestershire sauce
Quantity
1 teaspoon
fine sea salt
Quantity
to taste
black pepper
Quantity
to taste
freshly ground
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| mixed mushroomschestnut, field, and a handful of wild if you can get them, roughly chopped | 500g |
| unsalted butter | 50g |
| olive oil | 1 tablespoon |
| onionfinely chopped | 1 medium |
| garlicfinely chopped | 2 cloves |
| fresh thymeleaves picked | a few sprigs |
| plain flour | 1 tablespoon |
| dry white wine or dry sherry | 100ml |
| good beef, chicken, or vegetable stock | 600ml |
| soy sauce or Worcestershire sauce | 1 teaspoon |
| fine sea salt | to taste |
| black pepperfreshly ground | to taste |
Equipment Needed
- •Wide, heavy-bottomed frying pan or sauté pan
- •Wooden spoon
- •Warm jug for serving
Instructions
- 1
Get the pan properly hot
Put your widest, heaviest pan over a high heat. Let it get hot before anything goes in. Add half the butter and the olive oil. The butter should foam and begin to smell nutty almost immediately. This is the moment. Cold mushrooms in a warm pan stew. Hot mushrooms in a hot pan caramelize. The difference is everything.
Don't wash the mushrooms. Wipe them with a damp cloth or a piece of kitchen paper. Waterlogged mushrooms will never brown, and browning is the whole point of this recipe. - 2
Brown the mushrooms hard
Tip in the mushrooms in a single layer. Don't crowd them. If your pan isn't big enough, do it in two batches. Leave them alone for a minute or two, then stir and leave them alone again. You're waiting for the water to release, hiss away, and the mushrooms to start going properly dark at the edges. They'll shrink to about a third of their original volume. Season with salt once they've started to brown, not before.
- 3
Add the onion and garlic
Push the mushrooms to one side and drop the rest of the butter into the clear patch. Add the chopped onion and let it soften for five minutes or so, stirring it through the mushrooms once it's translucent. Add the garlic and thyme and give it another minute. The kitchen should smell like somewhere you want to be.
- 4
Flour and deglaze
Scatter the flour over everything and stir it in. Cook it for a minute until it disappears into the butter and loses its raw smell. Pour in the wine or sherry and let it bubble fiercely, scraping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon to lift the dark sticky bits. That's where the flavour lives. Don't leave any of it behind.
No wine in the house? A splash of brandy works. So does a glug of Madeira. Even a spoonful of cider vinegar with a pinch of sugar will do the job. What you're after is a sharpness to cut through the richness. - 5
Simmer into a gravy
Pour in the stock a little at a time, stirring well between additions so it stays smooth. Bring it to a gentle simmer and let it bubble away for ten or fifteen minutes, until it's reduced to something that coats the back of a spoon. Add the soy or Worcestershire sauce. Taste it. More salt, probably. A good grind of pepper. Taste again. If it needs more time, give it more time. Gravy rewards patience.
- 6
Finish and serve
Check the texture. If you want it smoother, give it a quick blitz with a stick blender, though I usually leave it chunky because I like the bits. If it's too thick, loosen with a splash more stock. If it's too thin, let it bubble a few minutes longer. Pour into a warm jug and take it straight to the table.
Chef Tips
- •Mix your mushrooms if you can. Chestnuts give body, field mushrooms bring that deep earthy flavour, and a handful of wild ones (dried porcini reconstituted in hot water counts) adds a whole other layer. Save the soaking liquid from dried mushrooms and use it as part of your stock. Nothing wasted.
- •The stock is doing a lot of work here, so make it a good one. A proper homemade stock will make the gravy taste like something you'd pay money for. A stock cube will make it taste like a stock cube. If you only have cubes, use half the amount and let the mushrooms carry most of the flavour.
- •A spoonful of cream stirred in at the end turns this into something richer, almost stroganoff-adjacent, which is lovely over pasta or rice. Without the cream, it freezes well and reheats beautifully. Your kitchen, your rules.
Advance Preparation
- •The gravy can be made up to three days ahead and kept in the fridge. Reheat gently, adding a splash of stock or water if it has thickened too much.
- •Freezes well for up to three months. Defrost overnight in the fridge and warm through in a pan. The flavour often deepens after a day or two, so making it ahead is no hardship at all.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 350g)
Calories
205 calories
Total Fat
14 g
Saturated Fat
7 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
6 g
Cholesterol
27 mg
Sodium
650 mg
Total Carbohydrates
9 g
Dietary Fiber
2 g
Sugars
4 g
Protein
5 g
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