My grandma's gravy was always lumpy... until I tried her coffee filter trick

I spent years making gravy from her old recipe card but it always came out with those tiny flour lumps. Last Thanksgiving I was about to toss the whole pot when I remembered a note she scribbled on the back. She said to line a strainer with a paper coffee filter and pour the gravy through it. I tried it and it caught every single lump in about 30 seconds flat. Now I can make her chicken gravy without whisking myself into a frenzy. Anyone else find a weird kitchen hack hidden in an old family recipe?

3 comments

3 Comments

rileyjones1mo ago

So I had a similar thing happen with my mom's cornbread dressing recipe... she wrote "don't overmix or else" on the back of an old church cookbook page and I never understood why until my first Thanksgiving hosting. I beat that batter like it owed me money and the dressing came out like a brick of cornmeal. Next time I barely stirred it and it turned out light and fluffy just like hers. Sometimes those old handwritten notes are worth more than the actual recipe...

fisher.mason10d ago

Hot take... overmixing anything with flour is a gamble you don't wanna take. Grandma knew what she was doing.

faithb781mo ago

Same with mixing concrete or drywall mud - too much beating ruins the texture every time, @rileyjones.