Oops. Gravy too salty? Add potato!
Posted by Mark Busse on Thursday, January 15th, 2009Tags for this Article: gravy, holiday, potato, salty, turkey
This holiday season my sister and I collaborated on Christmas dinner for our family—about 20 people this year! To our chagrin, our gravy made from the turkey drippings became too salty as it simmered away, reducing to the perfect consistency. Seriously though, we never should have added any salt until the very end and as a result, it was blow your head of salty. We tried adding sugar and cream, but still had a salty gravy. What to do?
Ages ago I heard someone mention that you could extract salt from soups and sauces by adding chopped raw potato for awhile, then removing it—something about the potato absorbing the surrounding salt. I never really believe it would work all that well, but was a little desperate as hungry family members stared at us eagerly. “Dad! Get me a couple potatoes, quick!” said I. Chop chop and into the gravy, simmer and stir for 15 more minutes and I swear, the saltiness was cut way down. In fact, it was nearly perfect. Amazing. And those potatoes? They were rather tasty themselves! A bit salty though…
Posted on January 15th, 2009
Nancy Wu says:
That’s a cool idea, thanks for sharing it Mark. Jamie Oliver & David Rocco said that potatoes are natural sponges for salt but I would have never thought of using it like this. Brilliant.
Posted on July 11th, 2009
Curly says:
Works well with soup, broth, or even too spicy curry sauces…..old school german trick. my great gran who lived to be 105 told me about the powers of the potatoe!