Perfect Gravy from the Microwave!
For some reason, a lot of people seem to feel uncomfortable or downright scared to use the microwave for cooking certain foods. The microwave is a very useful appliance for cooking. I’ve written a few past articles including the Microwave Mug Cake and How to Cook Sushi Rice in a Microwave. The microwave is an excellent appliance to cook various foods fast, but you’ll need to know how to properly use it. One thing that a microwave is excellent for is heating liquids rapidly… which is why gravy works great here. Today, let’s explore how to make gravy in a microwave in 5 minutes or less.
Prerequisites (What You Will Need)
- A glass measuring cup or small microwave safe bowl
- A spoon for stirring
- A set of measuring spoons
- All Purpose Flour (bleached or unbleached, NOT self-rising)
- Salt and Pepper (to taste)
- A Food Thermometer (optional, but very helpful)
- Stock / Bone Broth
Gravy starts with Chicken, Turkey, Beef or Pork Stock
Stock is the drippings left over after cooking most juicy meats. You’ll get these drippings from poultry, beef and pork. Even a small chicken leg quarter can produce enough drippings to make gravy. You can extend the amount gravy by adding a little water. After all, when it’s cooking, some of the water will evaporate making the drippings a bit concentrated.
Before making gravy out of your drippings, you’ll want to taste it. Not all stock flavorings will work for standard gravy. For example, if you’re wanting to save stock from your BBQ grilled meats, smokey BBQ flavored stock usually doesn’t work well as gravy. Instead, you might want to save those drippings to craft a BBQ sauce instead. That’s for another recipe, though.
If you’re oven baking your meats, meat drippings will work just fine for making a thick savory gravy.
The Trick to Great Gravy
To begin this recipe, it is recommended to use a microwave safe glass measuring cup with a handle. These cups have pour spouts and a stay-cool handle for when things gets hot. Glass measuring cups are typically microwave safe and are easily handled. It can also double as a gravy pouring dish if you don’t want to mess up more dishes.
The trick to making great gravy is to let the stock cool to 110ºF / 48.9ºC or less. You want the stock to be a tad lukewarm to allow for the next part to work, but not hot enough to activate the thickening. To cool your stock faster, slowly swirl it in the measuring cup, being careful not to swirl it all over yourself or the floor. If you’re not good at swirling things, try using a spoon instead. You can even dip the spoon in an ice water bath before stirring the liquid.
What trick is this?
In your measuring cup with your cooled stock, mix in about 3-4 heaping teaspoons of flour into 1/4 to 1/2 cup of stock. If the temperature is correct, the flour will mix in easily with just a bit of stirring, but not begin thickening. You might need to break up any dry clumps with a spoon, though and make sure they get fully incorporated into the liquid.
The drippings should turn lighter in color and appear opaque and cloudy, but remain watery. This is what you want. If you let the mixture sit too long after stirring, the flour will begin to settle to the bottom. If this happens, you’ll need to stir it again before beginning the microwave part.
Once the mixture is incorporated, fully cloudy and freshly mixed, place it into a microwave.
How to Prepare
To finish the gravy off once in the microwave, start the microwave on high for 30 seconds. The outer portions touching the glass will begin to bubble and appear thick. When the microwave stops, stir the mixture thoroughly for about 1-2 minutes or until the gravy begins to thicken. It should actually be thickening already.
Place the measuring cup back into the microwave for another 30 seconds. Then, remove and stir. At this point, your gravy should be fully thickened and ready. You can now add salt and pepper to taste. Your gravy is done. Serve immediately.
Too Thick? Too Thin?
If your gravy seems too thick and seems almost clumpy, there is an easy fix. Add in a bit of room temperature water to thin it out. Stir as you add the water slowly until you get it to a desired gravy thickness.
If your gravy is still too thin, place it back into the microwave for another 30 seconds and see if that helps. If it doesn’t, you’ll need to wait until the mixture has cooled to around 110ºF / 48.9ºC again and then mix in more flour, perhaps 1 or 2 more heaping teaspoons. Always make sure to incorporate the flour thoroughly. You want gravy, not clumps. Then, follow the steps above once more.
Note that very low wattage microwaves might need a longer time to begin to see bubbling, up to 1 minute. Higher wattage microwaves might need less time, perhaps even as little as 15 seconds per stir.
Should I remove the oil on the top?
No, you should not. Unless you have a medical condition that warrants the removal of the oil for medical purposes, the oil should be left in as it will add flavor and texture to the gravy, making it more savory and giving it a better overall texture, particularly when topped onto mashed potatoes. The oil also aids in the thickening process.
If there’s more oil on top than watery liquid on the bottom, you’ll want to spoon out some oil leaving some on top. Then add more water to bring the overall watery portion to more than the oil. The oil on top should be less than the amount of liquid below it. This oily situation can happen with fattier cuts of meat. I’ve never seen this happen with chicken.
You can even fortify the flavor of the watery drippings portions by adding in bouillon flavoring. Be careful doing this as bouillon tends to add a lot of extra salt.
In about 1 minute, you’ll have excellent thick gravy for mashed potatoes or to top your favorite meats. No need to toss the small drippings out. Instead, turn those drippings into a savory gravy. Even just a quarter to half cup of gravy is enough to cover mashed potatoes for two people and still have a bit left over.
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Where can I find Delbert’s Traditional Chitlins in Fallout 76?
This is a question with few answers on the Internet. Let’s me answer it here.
Fallout 76 and Bugs
[Updated: 1/30/2022] Good news! Happy to now report this recipe is finally available in the game. After 4 years of reporting this bug both on this blog (and to Bethesda), Bethesda has finally decided to fix it. Delbert’s Traditional Chitlins is FINALLY learnable. I do not know which release actually fixed it, but it was a release sometime between September 2021 and January 2022. The last time I attempted to retrieve this recipe was in the summer of 2021 and it was still broken even then.
With that said, let’s talk about where this recipe is located.
Delbert’s Traditional Chitlins
This recipe spawns at the Spruce Knob Campgrounds located at Spruce Knob Lake and which actually gets you closest to this table via the Spruce Knob Lake fast travel point. If you have played through “The Order of the Tadpole” quest line, you have probably attempted to obtain the Swimmer’s badge. If you have, then you know this lake.
The recipe paper is located on a picnic table right next to a blue cooler. The picnic table is next to the shore of Spruce Knob Lake. Again, use the Spruce Knob Lake fast travel marker to get here, but be sure to bring enough ammo to avoid the two Mirelurks and the Mirelurk King that skulk around the shore line.
In case you’re wondering, the issue with this Recipe is that it was formerly bugged, for 4 years running! When Bethesda released this recipe into the game, this piece of paper had no interaction (see the screenshot). However, 4 years later and this bug has now been fixed! It took 4 years for Bethesda to fix a relatively simple bug! This means you can now retrieve this recipe and learn it. However, the placement of the recipe has been moved from next to the cooler (pictured) to the left lower edge of the table.
Bug Fixes
Yay, it’s finally fixed!
All 13 Delbert’s recipes are finally available in Fallout 76. All of these recipes look like a piece of 3 hole school paper. They do not have the same appearance as standard recipes. In fact, let me explain where each of Delbert’s Recipes spawn.
Note that early in the game’s life, Delbert’s Sunshine Oil, Mountain Hocks and Appalachili all existed in Flatwoods. After the Steel Dawn update, two moved to new locations. The recipe locations are as follows:
- Delbert’s Appalachili recipe is still located next to the armor bench on the porch of a house just across from the Flatwoods Tavern.
- Delbert’s Bunless Cramburger recipe is located at The General’s Steakhouse in the Cranberry Bog. It is located downstairs in the basement kitchen at the end of the counter to the right just as you come down the stairs. This is NOT the same recipe as “Cramburger”. Bring ammo or don your 3 star Sneak Card, because you’ll need to take care of a number of Super Mutants and two hounds downstairs or sneak past all of them.
- Delbert’s Company Tea recipe is located at Superior Sunset Farm in a half-open basement of this farmhouse in the Cranberry Bog. It is pinned to a cork bulletin board.
- Delbert’s Corn Pone recipe is located in a small funnel cake stand at Tyler County Fairgrounds. This kitchen spawns a Scorched inside.
- Delbert’s Delicious Deerskins recipe is located behind a Level 2 locked door to a candy shop at Wavy Willard’s. Be sure to equip your lock picking cards.
- Delbert’s Granny’s Sweet Tea recipe is located at Mac’s Farm on a small table to the right of the front door entrance. Watch out for the Mirelurk Queen and two Mirelurks around the house.
- Delbert’s Mountain Hocks recipe
is located next to a skeleton in the Red Rocket just outside of Flatwoods. This recipe is currently located at Beckwith Farm (Savage Divide) on top of a stone of a burned out campfire. - Delbert’s Mud Cookie recipe is located on the kitchen counter of the blue house at Aaronholt Homestead.
- Delbert’s Pothole Potpie recipe is located in
the center of Treehouse Village in the Mire.It is on a shelving unit across from Lorne’s terminal. This recipe can now be found at The Retreat (formerly named Treehouse Village). The recipe sits immediately to the right of Lorne’s terminal which was moved onto a small desk in a new area. From the spawn point, run straight ahead towards a power armor repair station, run up the stairs and into the red door. - Delbert’s Sweet Labrador Tea recipe is located inside of Raleigh Clay’s Bunker in the mire. It is on the dining room table in the kitchen. You will need to begin the quest at Abbie’s Bunker to get the password to gain access to Raleigh Clay’s bunker.
- Delbert’s Sunshine Oil recipe
was located in Delbert’s trailer on the nightstand next to the bed. It can currently be found inside the right most of two adjoining houses in Welch on the kitchen counter. - Delbert’s Tato Salad Surprise recipe is located on the kitchen counter at Silva Homestead.
- Delbert’s Traditional Chitlins recipe is located at the Spruce Knob Lake Campground Area (Savage Divide). It is located on a picnic table near a blue cooler next to the edge of the table. This recipe unlocks Chitlins Con Carne.
Updated Note as of 2/2021: As of a recent update (perhaps Steel Dawn), Bethesda removed two of the recipes from Flatwoods and located them elsewhere. Delbert’s Sunshine Oil recipe can no longer be found next to the bed in Delbert’s trailer. Delbert’s Mountain Hocks recipe no longer spawns next to the skeleton in the Flatwoods Red Rocket. Of the three, only Delbert’s Appalachili recipe remains in its original location in Flatwoods.
Here are pictures of each of these recipes in Fallout 76:
Recipe Notes
Delbert’s Company Tea requires using a serving of Delbert’s Sweet Labrador Tea to make. This means you’ll need to have both recipes to make Delbert’s Company Tea. To make Sweet Labrador Tea, you’ll need honeycomb… a very hard ingredient to find in the game. As for where to find honeycomb, I’ll have to leave you to locate that in Fallout 76 for yourself.
Also note that you are allowed to pick up all of these recipes more than once, as of now. However, the recipes may also only be acquired once per 24 hour period of time (real 24 hours, not in game hours). This means you must wait for the recipe to respawn over a full 24 hour day of play time. Note, Bethesda can always change this or any game mechanic. If the recipe hasn’t respawned and it seems like a long time, you must play a full 24 hours of real clock hours in Fallout 76 before the recipes will respawn. Basically, give it plenty of time.
Alternatively, here’s a faster way. If you have multiple characters and subscribe to Fallout 1st, while waiting for them to respawn for your primary character, have your alt characters go get the recipes and hand them over to your primary character. Each character has a separate 24 hour clock for these recipes.
Good Luck!
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Random Thoughts - Randocity! 
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