Nika's Culinaria - Eat With Your Eyes

We (my husband, my mom, and I) adapted a Demi-glace-based brown sauce recipe from the Culinary Institute of America's textbook The Professional Chef 7th Ed., p. 287. Sure this recipe breaks some rules, but we are not enrolled at the CIA and don't have to follow the rules! For example, the wine should be reduced separately and many more pots would be used in the traditional method. We used one baking sheet, two stock pots, and one 12 inch cast iron skillet.

We melded elements from the Bordelaise and Chateaubriand sauce protocols as well as inspirations of our own, including the Guinness. This recipe will allow for wide variation in its ingredients and their proportions and still turn out great. The technique and loving patience are what matter most.

Note that this recipe takes two or more days. This time is WELL worth the effort. The resulting sauce stores well in the refrigerator or freezer.

(Copyright 2006 email us for permission to use recipe or photo)

Cabernet Sauvignon - Guinness Brown Beef Sauce

Stock ingredients:
One 3 foot beef thigh bone, cut by butcher, into 6 inch parts
Water for stock, as needed
1.5 liters Cabernet Sauvignon (good quality, not the boxed kind!)
2 11.2 ounce bottles of Guinness
Ham bone
1/2 C ham trimmings

Mirepoix ingredients:
8 large carrots, 1 inch dice
8 celery stalks, 1 inch dice
6 ounces mushrooms (equal parts: shitake, baby bella, and oyster)
1 large white onion, 1 inch dice
1 large Vidalia onion, 1 inch dice
5 shallots, small dice
6 cloves garlic, small dice
1 stick clarified butter
8 ounces tomato paste

Bouquet Garni ingredients:
3 sprigs of fresh
- Sage
- Tarragon
- Thyme
2 Rosemary stalks

Roux ingredients:
3/4 C drippings from 11 lb roasted beef rib roast (or the current meat you are roasting or have saved drippings from)
3/4 C all purpose flour

Finish:
4 parts sauce to 1 part heavy cream


Stock Directions:

Day 1

Roast bone pieces on an oiled pan at 425 F until brown (about 45 mins).

Pour grease off pan and scrape up any non-grease drippings, add to stock pot.

Place roasted bones into cold water in a large stock pot (to cover bones).

Bring to simmer and continue for 5 hours. Remove scum occasionally with slotted spoon.

Add water to keep bones submerged, as needed.

Add ham bone and trimmings, boil 2 hours more. (This can be omitted or you can add other sorts of bones but try not to add something that has a really strong aroma to it.)

Remove from heat and place in refrigerator or cold room over night.


Day 2

In the morning, remove solid fat from top of stock.

Replace pot to stove and add wine and beer to stock, bring to simmer.

Simmer for 7 hours, uncovered, and continue to skim.

Prepare mirepoix (see directions below).

Remove bones.

Add prepared mirepoix (in batches if necessary) and bring stock back to a simmer.

Simmer 2 hours, uncovered.

Remove boiled mirepoix with slotted spoon to colander, catch dripping back into pot. (This cooked mirepoix is tasty and can make a nice snack.)

Strain stock into another stock pot through a colander with several layers of cheese cloth, removing top layers as necessary when they become saturated with solids and block further drainage. Have a lot of the cheese cloth on hand as this straining should be repeated several times. You can rinse the cloth and reuse.

Return to a boil for 45 minutes.

Add Bouquet Garni (can be loose to be removed later or in a sack) and then boil for a further 45 minutes or so.

Continue boiling until stock volume is reduced to about 1/2 to 3/4 of a gallon.

This reduction is done when the stock begins to thicken (to coat back of a spoon).

Remove bouquet garni and strain stock through fine colander.

Cool until remaining fat congeals and remove it. (This can be stored frozen or refrigerated.).

If chilled at this point, the stock will congeal into a gelatin.

Spoon all of the roux mixture (see directions below) into simmering reduced stock slowly, stir until incorporated.

Simmer gently for 20 minutes and then cool, until thickened.

This can be stored in the refrigerator to be spooned out into a sauce pan as needed, if not used immediately.

Prior to service, warm 4 parts sauce in a medium heat sauce pan and then add 1 part heavy cream. Do not boil. Continue simmer

This sauce has a lovely velvety sheen, even before the addition of cream, but if you wish to make it even more decadent you can also do a Monter au Beurre*.

Allow cream to warm in the sauce and then slowly add a small amount of butter (1/2 inch thick butter pat). Just as that is almost melted, ad the next butter pat. Depending on the volume, you can add 1/2 a stick of butter to a whole stick. Take care; you do not want your sauce becoming the Exxon Valdez of the sauce world. Alton Brown did an AMAZING episode on butter, including a Beurre Blanc sauce.

Associated directions:

Mirepoix directions:
Put carrots, celery, mushrooms, onions, shallots, and garlic into a hot skillet with clarified butter. If needed, do in batches and add to simmering stock as each batch is done. It takes about 15 minutes at medium heat to bring carrots to a nice brown stage. Add tomato paste to each batch after the vegetables have browned, about 4 minutes before transferring batch to stock.


Roux directions:
Collect clear beef fat (about 3/4 C fat) from roasted prime rib roast that had been coated with a kosher salt crust. Any salt that had fallen into roast fat is all the salt that will be included in this stock/sauce. Heat fat in sauce pan, sift in 3/4 C all purpose flour slowly. Whisk to avoid lumps. The secret here is to essentially have equal amounts of fat to flour. Simmer 7 – 10 mins at medium heat, stirring constantly, until the roux thickens and the flour has been cooked to a medium brown color.


* To go up to Butter: To incorporate in the whip or by rotational movements, of butter in a sauce. This applies especially in the phases of completion of sauces. Source - translated from French, Untranslated link.


Related External Links

- Alton Brown's "A Case for Butter" episode
- Alton Brown's recipe for Raymond Beurre Blanc
- Meilleur du Chef (French language cuisine resource site)
- Meilleur du Chef in English