Demi-Glace Sauce

There were many parallel recipes of the sauce before Auguste Escoffier perfected its recipe, and established it as an important ingredient in the cooking methods of classical French dishes. Demi-glace is made with two basic ingredients, namely espagnole sauce and brown stock. Now, many people are curious to know what is espagnole sauce, and what is brown stock? Here's an explanation:

• Espagnole Sauce: Espagnole sauce is one of the primary cooking sauces of the French cuisine. Espagnole sauce forms the basis for many French dishes and other types of French sauces. The recipe of this mother sauce is also included in the following paragraphs.
• Brown Stock: Brown stock is basically thick concentrated flavored water that is used in the French cuisine. Brown stock that is used for the preparation of Demi-glace mix, is usually made from veal or beef. While preparing variants of the sauce such as mushroom Demi-glace or red wine in Demi-glace, different ingredients such as wine and mushrooms are used to make the stock. Brown stock is also used to make meat based soups.

Recipe for Demi-glace Sauce

Requirement
To make the Demi-glace, you will need the following:

• pint espagnole sauce
• pint jellied brown stock
• one carrot
• an onion
• 2 oz/ 50 gm green streaky bacon
• 2 table spoons butter
• 3 table spoons plain flour
• pint of brown stock
• bouquet garni
• 2 level tablespoons tomato paste
• salt and black pepper

In the above ingredients, the measure of stock and espagnole sauce has been given for the Demi-glace. The remaining ingredients are that of the espagnole sauce.

Procedure
The procedure involves two parts, the first part is the preparation of espagnole sauce. The second part is the preparation of the actual sauce.

1. In order to make the espagnole sauce, first peel and dice the onion and carrot. Next, remove the rind and gristle of the bacon, and chop the remaining portion.
2. After you are done with the cutting, melt the entire butter in a pan, and cook the vegetables and bacon for a time span of about 10 minutes or till the mixture becomes brown.
3. Next, put in the flour and keep on stirring the roux till it becomes brown.
4. Put in half the stock and stir the mixture till it becomes thick.
5. Next, add the bouquet garni and let the mixture simmer for 30 minutes.
6. Add the remaining stock and tomato paste and cook for another 30 minutes.
7. After the mixture has cooled down, strain the sauce and adjust the seasoning. Your espagnole sauce is ready.

After you have prepared the espagnole sauce, the remaining procedure to prepare the Demi-glace is simple. This is how you can do it.

1. Add the pint of stock to the freshly prepared espagnole sauce.
2. Boil the mixture till the two sauces merge together and become thick. Let the sauce cool down before you use it to prepare anything.

Many different variants of Demi-glace have emerged within a short period of time. For example, venison Demi-glace is used with deer and game cuisine (which is incidentally banned in many nations due to excessive deer hunting), or the Japanese Demi-glace which is used in many Japanese cuisines.