It’s no surprise that Mary-Ellen McTague runs a tight ship, gravy-wise.
It’s more than apparent at her Pip restaurant in Manchester’s Treehouse Hotel – which specialises in comforting flavours executed with her own meticulous approach.
This means you’ll find dishes like a humble Lancashire hotpot accompanied by oyster ketchup, or a chicken and leek pie show-stoppingly assembled with a side of celeriac puree. Then there’s the Sunday roasts, where a classic gravy is elevated to a fine art.
Gravy, according to McTague, is of near-spiritual importance. “It’s like the elixir of the gods, basically,” she says. “Can you imagine a dry roast dinner? I can’t contemplate it”.
At Pip, it’s treated with the same care and attention as any centrepiece cut of meat, built slowly, deliberately, and with a real focus on depth of flavour.
Everything starts with bones – in this case, lamb. Trim and bones are roasted hard, at 180 degrees or higher, to trigger the Maillard reaction, that essential browning process that creates the deep, savoury backbone of the finished sauce (one suspects this science-ey approach may hark back in some respects to her time at Heston Blumethal’s Fat Duck).
It’s the first element in something that will be built up, step by step, over hours.
Alongside that, onions are sliced as thinly as possible and cooked down low and slow with oil and just a whisper of star anise. Not an overpowering amount, just enough to add a subtle warmth.
The onions are worked constantly, scraped and stirred until they reach a deep golden colour, creating that caramelised flavour you’re looking for.
Then it’s a waiting game. The roasted bones are submerged, the onions added, and everything is left to simmer for three to four hours – this is not a process that should be rushed.
What comes out is strained, reduced, and carefully skimmed, with nothing wasted. Then for the cheffy magic: the fat skimmed from the surface isn’t discarded, it’s clarified separately, cooked until clean and intensely flavoured. Then, right at the end, it’s emulsified back into the reduced gravy.
There are no hacks or store cupboard shortcuts. “It’s gonna be a really rich, really meaty gravy,” she says. Quite.
At Pip, it’s poured generously over striploin beef, porchetta or roast Cumbrian chicken, served alongside celeriac purée, roasted carrots, cavolo nero and potatoes.
And if you want to see just how seriously they take it, you only need to turn up on a Sunday, where two courses are £34 and three are £39.
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