Demi-glace

So this morning someone was searching for recipes using demi-glace and landed on my blog. The post they landed on described how I made demi-glace and then gave a recipe for English Muffins. A little convoluted, but I never promised you a well-thought out blog. These are just my random musings on food and how I know almost everything there is to know about it. And you don't. So, I do feel a little guilty that I never published any more recipes using the holy grail of brown sauces. So here is one more.

Serve as a topping to any kind of beef or lamb or as a side dish to whatever you feel needs some mushroomy goodness.

Sauteed mushrooms with demi-glace a la June.

1 Lb mixed mushrooms, (crimini, shiitake, hen of the woods, porcini (you can even use dried porcinis. Just soak them first)

2 T olive oil
2 T butter
1 T lemon juice
salt and pepper
3 T red wine
1 T demi-glace
Fresh chopped parsley

Heat olive oil and butter in saute pan. Add sliced mushroom and cook until mushrooms are soft and slightly brown and most of the liquid is absorbed. Season with kosher salt and pepper. Remove mushrooms from pan. Add wine to pan and reduce until about a tablespoon.  Add lemon juice, demi-glace, and parsley. Add mushrooms back to the pan.  Adjust seasoning.

Uses for Demi-glace

Alright, since some of you heathens don't seem to know what to do with the gift of demi-glace I have bestowed upon you, here it is, Marchand de Vin Sauce. This is my favorite recipe using demi-glace. Used immediately over a nice seared rib-eye, or filet it is fantastic. If there is any leftover you can use it as a compound butter. You could even freeze the compound butter. Try using the leftover butter on some steamed asparagus or broccoli with some roasted potatoes and grilled chicken. I will be serving this tonight with smashed potatoes, salad with apricot and pecans (recipe from my mom) and a vegetable to be determined after I see what looks good at the store. For dessert we will be having orange sherbet made in the ice cream maker. A nice bottle of Cabernet and we're all set. What else could you want or need on a cold winter's night?

Marchand de Vin Sauce

1 C red wine
2 shallots, minced
10 T softened butter
1-2 T demi-glace
1 1/4 tsp lemon juice
2 T chopped parsley

Boil red wine and shallots 12-15 minutes until reduced by 2/3. Remove from heat and whisk in butter, a tablespoon at a time, whisking after each addition. Stir in lemon juice and parsley and adjust seasoning to taste.

More Demi-glace and Those Long Awaited English Muffins

The saga of the demi-glace continues. First, this is the recipe I have been using to make my demi-glace. After reading through at least a dozen recipes this appeared to be the most straight-forward while remaining fairly authentic.

I am now at the second step. I ignored the brown sauce in the fridge for two days. It kept staring back at me, taunting me to not let it sit there and go bad before I got the energy up to go on to the next step. So this afternoon, after a bit of a nap, I chopped away at mire-poix and stirred the roux til it was nice and brown and now it simmers away nicely on the stove, filling the house with a pleasant aroma that is piquing my appetite. I ended up with a quart and a half more brown stock than I need, but I don't really see that as a problem. I am going to use some of it tonight to make a mushroom risotto. Yuummmmy!!! I think the recipe will also produce more espangole sauce than is needed, but I'm sure it will freeze nicely, too. The one thing I haven't solved is deciding what I shall cook with the demi-glace tomorrow. I'm leaning toward pan searing some steaks and making a marchand du vin sauce. My mom would be appalled that I am pan searing steaks, but it is eleven degrees outside right now and I'm not going out to barbeque! I'll fill you in on how the rest of goes....

So, here is the long awaited English Muffin recipe. It is from the Joy of Cooking. Don't forget to toast them after they come off the griddle, then spread with butter, (don't even consider using margarine, okay. Just don't) and some homemade blackberry jam. Alas, I didn't make any jam this summer, so I have to beg some off of Priscilla. She'll give me some. If she wants demi-glace. If you want two tablespoons of demi-glace and you live in Rochester, leave a comment saying so and you can come by on sunday afternoon and I will give you some. If I approve of how you plan to use it. Come on, now. How nice do you think I can be? Not that nice.

Combine in a mixing bowl:
1 C water
1/2 c scalded milk
2 tsps sugar
1 tsp salt

Disolve for 3-5 minutes :
2 T 105-115 degree water
1 package active dry yeast

Combine the two mixtures.

Sift before measuring: 4 C flour

Add 2 cups flour gradually into the milk mixture. Cover bowl with a cloth. Let the sponge rise in a warm place for about 1 1/2 hours or until it collapses back into the bowl.

Beat in
2 T softened butter

Beat or knead in the remaining flour. Pat the dough into a 1/2 inch thickness. Cut the dough into 3 inch circles and cover and let rise again until doubled. Transfer carefully to a hot well-buttered griddle and cook until light brown. Turn once while cooking. Cool slightly. Enjoy!

There, anonymous, are you happy now? You will be once you make these muffins!

Demi-glace

I have started the demi-glace process. It is not too bad so far. I started by roasting the veal and beef bones in the oven along with some aromatics, then putting them in the giant stock pot and adding the de-glazed roasting pan juices along with ten quarts of water and some more aromatics. It is simmering on the stove right now, as it has been for the past five hours. This is a brown sauce, otherwise known to most of us as a beef stock.

Tomorrow afternoon I will take the brown sauce and make a Sauce Espaniole. Then that will be added to more brown sauce and reduced even further. This ten quarts of water will eventually become two cups of demi-glace. After I simmer and simmer and simmer for TWENTY-FIVE FREAKING HOURS. It really doesn't require that much attention, just time. And right now the main problem with that is that I started it so late in the day that I will have to stay awake until eleven o'clock to finish only the first step. Oh, I can hear my daughter Meagan now, "Ooooo eleven o'oclock, how will you manage it." I'm old. And tired. It's winter and it's cold. That makes me sleepy. But, I must finish my sauce, I must fiinish my sauce....yawn......

WWJD

What would Jesus do? Hell no! What would JUNE do?

Recently, my friend Priscilla was in the grocery store looking for a rather arcane ingredient, veal demi-glace, because the previous day I witnessed her trying to make a veal marsala sauce and substitute WATER for the demi-glace. My, my. You'd think she'd know by now that if she wanted to do something bone-headed like that, she should do it behind my back so that I am deprived of the opportunity to make fun of her. So she had to get some demi-glace, just so that she had for next time and so that I wouldn't have a better stocked kitchen than she does. (I do. Except when it comes to Chinese ingredients. Not to digress, but I love that if I need dried shiitake mushrooms, I know just where I can get them in town without having to drive twenty minutes to Henrietta. She likewise likes to know that she can come over here anytime and get crystallized ginger, or pumpkin seed oil.)

Demi-glace is marvelous stuff. It is almost like a thick paste when you buy it. A couple of spoonfuls whisked into a Marchand du vin sauce, the aforementioned Marsala, or a Bordelaise create a richness and depth is that is incredible.

So, as she searched out already-prepared demi-glace at Wegman's she asked herself, "What would June do?" She tried repeatedly to reach me by phone, but since I am fairly retarded when it comes to hearing my phone, or making sure it is not on vibrate at the bottom of my purse, or digging it out fromt he bottom of my purse before it stops ringing, she wasn't able to reach me to find out. She wandered aimlessly around and left empty-handed, and dejectedly, while still asking herself, "What would June do?"

I think that is a good question, one every one of you should ask yourself every time you step into a grocery store. Would June buy this pre-made pizza dough? (Yes, if I was desperate and had no time.) Would June serve those frozen corn-dogs? (Only to the kids, once in a while, if I didn't want them interfering with a good Women-Who-Wine (Whine) night). Would June like these overly-expensive champagne mangoes? (Yes, but i know where you can get them cheaper!) Where would June look for veal demi-glace? (Sometimes they have it frozen, sometimes they have it near the chicken stock. Sometimes they don't have it.)

So, Priscilla left the store without demi-glace. What would June do? When she finally reached me, we decided that there was only one thing to do: make veal demi-glace. This requires a herculean effort. You have to have the butcher cut veal and beef bones into one-inch segments. Then you have to roast those. Then you have have to make a espagniole sauce AND a brown stock. Then you have to cook those together for about twenty hours to reduce them by half. I'll let you know how it goes. If you live in Rochester, and I like you and you don't annoy me, I will probably give you a couple tablespoons of the finished product. Maybe.