Deglazing: It works like magic

Here’s how it works. You roast a turkey (or chicken or duck or roast beef or veal or pork). Don’t use a nonstick pan if you can avoid it because you actually want to encourage sticking. The browned bits are full of flavor that will wind up in your sauce. The roast comes out of the oven. You remove it to a carving board and let it rest. You have to do this anyway before you carve it. While it’s resting, you make a little deglazing sauce.

Pour most of the fat out of the roasting pan; leave just a tablespoon or so. Place the pan on the stove, over two burners if it’s a big pan. Turn the heat on low, toss in some chopped shallots and “sweat” them — just let them cook until they’re tender, about five minutes or so. Now turn the heat to high, and add liquid.

Wine is what I usually use; red or white, depending on what I’ll be drinking with dinner. If you use a wine that’s similar to what you’ll be serving with the meal, it will make a natural flavor “bridge.” (If you’re drinking something pricey, use a less expensive version for the sauce.) But really, any dry wine — except maybe an over-oaked Chardonnay — will do.

Pour the wine into the pan and, using a wooden spoon, start scraping up all the wonderful browned bits and caramelized stuff from the bottom. Keep deglazing in this way, scraping and reducing, adding more wine if necessary, over high heat until the bottom of the pan is completely smooth. (Incidentally, it will be quite easy to clean after this.) For the simplest sauce, if you’ve just roasted an everyday chicken or really any kind of meat, you can go ahead and add salt and pepper to taste, and pour the sauce into a sauceboat. (Strain or not strain, as you like.)

But if you want a sauce that’s a little richer, take it another step: Add some stock — as much or as little as you want, either chicken broth from a box or can, or homemade chicken stock or veal stock. For an even richer sauce, reduce chicken stock by half before adding it.