Getting Sauced with Your Mother, Part Two

Originally published in hot and juicy newspapers on January 17, 2008

Really great food is like a really great piece of music. The composer has four basic tools to use - rhythm, melody, harmony, and form and the cook has four flavor profiles with which to work - sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. In both music and cooking, the interplay among the basic elements is what makes things interesting.
 
There is a great scene in both the stage and film versions of Amadeus where Mozart plays a piece of music for Emperor Joseph and the Emperor tells Mozart, “there are simply too many notes, that’s all, just cut a few out and it will be perfect.” Mozart responds, “Which few did you have in mind, Majesty.”

Demi glace, today’s entry into the five-part series on mother sauces, has a great many notes and taking out even one is as unimaginable as removing a note from one of Mozart’s concertos. The creation of demi glace is not difficult but it is time consuming. The end product, however,  is nothing short of sublime - deep and complex.

As we discussed last time, the five mother sauces are the sauces from which many, many others derive. The road to demi glace includes two other stops that are destinations in and of themselves. The first stop is beef stock. Stop there and you’ve got a great base for soup or stew. At the next exit is a basic brown sauce, also known as espagnole. Technically, espangnole is the actual mother sauce but you can’t do much with it other than make demi glace. So, demi glace is the real star and its highly versatile, making it the mother sauce as far as I am concerned.

Demi glace can be used for the base of wine sauces like Marsala and Madeira, a delicious mushroom sauce, bordelaise, and many others. Unfortunately, I will not be able to get you all the way to demi glace in the space available in this column. Here is the recipe for phase one - a basic beef stock.

This stock beats the proverbial pants off of anything you will find in a can, or bullion cube. It can be made in a large batch and frozen in smaller servings. Two cups in a zip-top freezer bag is just right for lots of applications. This recipe begins with beef bones. I like femur bones and a good butcher can provide you with these and cut them to the size you need. You may also see bones put out occasionally in the grocery store meat counter. I will often buy what they have, throw them in the freezer, and when I have enough, make the stock.

This recipe for stock will get you started and if you want the next two phases - espagnole and demi glace, check my website. I’ll also have some of the uses for demi glace and the recipes for the other four mother sauces in case you miss one of those.

For web visitors, here are links to the other recipes and variations: Espagnole, Demi Glace & Variations 

Beef Stock

• 7 pounds beef bones, cut into 2-inch pieces
• 6 ounces tomato paste
• 2 cups onions, chopped
• 1 cup carrot, chopped
• 1 cup celery, chopped
• 2 cups dry red wine
• Fresh parsley, handful
• 4 bay leaves, fresh or dried
• Fresh thyme, 4 or five stems
• 10 black pepper corns
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 8 quarts of water

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Place the bones in a roasting pan and roast for one hour. Remove the pan from the oven and smear the bones with the tomato paste. Add the onions, carrots, and celery to the pan, placing them on top of the bones and roast for an additional 30 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and use tongs to transfer the bones and vegetables to a 12-quart stock pot.

Drain off any fat that is in the pan. Deglaze the pan with the red wine, using a wooden spoon to scrape the bottom of the pan to loosen any browned bits. Pour the deglazing liquid into the stock pot. Tie the parsley and thyme together with kitchen twine and add it, along with the bay leaves, to the pot. Add  peppercorns, salt, and water. Place the pot on a high-heat burner and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for four hours, skimming periodically.

Remove from the heat, strain, let cool for two hours and then refrigerate. The next day use a large spoon to remove the thin layer of fat that will have solidified on the top.