Chicken Gravy

Recently we had chicken and waffles. I made a chicken gravy, a thin gravy with shredded chicken. Here is how I made it.

Because of the quantity of chicken I wanted, I used a whole chicken for this recipe. I put a frozen chicken in an 8 qt. stockpot and covered it with water. I put it on the stove to boil. Once it came to a boil, I turned the heat to low and let it simmer for 3 hours. This was the resulting broth with a nice layer of chicken fat.

Since I had a day until I needed the chicken gravy, I refrigerated the whole pot. The chicken chilled and the fat congealed. Also the broth was semi-gelatinous, always a good thing! At this point when you reach for the chicken it falls apart.

So I pulled off the leg and thighs from both sides and all the breast meat. I pulled the bones out and the skin off.

Because I wanted the chicken to be finely shredded, I pushed all the meat flat with my (clean) fingers. You could do the same thing with a kitchen mallet.

Then I chopped the meat up across the grain and ended up with finely shredded meat. (A 4 pound chicken gave me about 4 cups of meat, a cup from each section.)

Meanwhile, I was making the gravy. Recipes seem to have equal parts liquid and chicken. So 2 cups of broth would need 2 cups of chicken. And that ratio seems to make a nice chicken gravy.

I started with some fat, either the chicken fat from the broth or some butter. I used arrowroot as my thickener and mixed that with the fat, heating it and letting it thicken. Then I added most of the broth. I kept some back, so that I could add more arrowroot if it wasn’t thick enough. I let this heat almost to boiling. (Equivalency: 1 part arrowroot=2 parts cornstarch=4 parts flour)(Thickeners mix well with fats. They tend to clump when added to hot liquids, but mix well with cold liquids. So I tend to mix 1 part of thickener with 2 parts of cold liquid, either broth or water. I stir this until it is smooth, then add the smooth mixture to my hot stove liquid.)

Finally, I added the chicken to the gravy and had chicken gravy. You can see the meat blended in. I let this warm to almost boiling and then served it over waffles. It is a thin gravy, but works well over waffles or toast. And it would be a little bland by itself, but would be ok over most starches, potatoes, rice or noodles.

You can add your normal spices, salt, pepper, onions and garlic. Onions and garlic I would saute at the beginning in the fat before I add the thickener. Spices, salt and pepper, I would add at the end.