Just Brilliant
What an absolutely cracking sauce.
It all started last Wednesday morning, as I walked home from Dewsons with a green bag full of marrow bones, a jar of tomato paste, carrots, celery, and onions.
I roasted all of those ingredients in my largest trays, the bones coated in tomato paste and flour. All of them ended up in my 24L stockpot, simmering away until the last minute before I had to leave for work on Thursday night.
When I checked on the chilled laundry tub of strained stock on Saturday (It took up half of my fridge space, most of the shelves had to be removed), it had formed an inch-thick lid of orange fat. That stock underneath was an almost opaque brown, it rested in an imperishable state.
On Sunday I pulled that seal off with a paring knife and a large spatula. All but a litre of the stock returned to the stockpot. As it warmed up I reduced on the side 2 litres of red wine and shallots down to 1 litre. This was then strained into the stockpot. I left the stock and wine to reduce down for another 24 hours.
By lunch today the 10 litres of stock had transformed into 1 litre of demi-glace. This is the stuff of gods. My little plastic tub held an almost solid, pudding-like brown-black mass. I was starting to get excited about tonight's dinner.
Much french cooking is based on the transformation of inexpensive and nasty ingredients into something special. Now making stock and demi-glace is a basic principle, but it's all about that magic that takes place over days of flavour interchange.
But then the recipe for the sauce I wanted to try called for something else. Cognac. This is often the case. There will be some gourmet ingredient that costs a fortune, most often because it's hard to get a hold of, or it needs to be imported. I bit the bullet and grabbed an $85 bottle of Hennessey.
One hour ago, it was on. I thought I'd try this out with a nice piece of fillet steak, crusted in cracked peppercorns, and some fries. Once the steak was seared off, I took it out of the pan and rested it.
All the stuff stuck to the pan is a major ingredient. A splash of the Cognac served to deglaze the pan. The first amazing smell reached my nose. Within seconds it changed from sharp and sweet, to aromatic and deep. I let this bubble away to half.
Next came four soup spoons of the dark beef stock, and one soup spoon of the demi-glace. The smell of this combination in the pan was almost a meal in itself. Again, I let it reduce down to half. It looked a bit like gravy, but it was so much more.
Almost done. I quickly threw the cooked chips and steak back into the oven to warm them up. I added a couple of spoons of butter into the sauce and stirred it through, quickly stacked my chips and steak onto a plate, and tipped the sauce over the lot.
Now That was something else. Such a dark, rich flavour, a thick coating texture, the statement made by the sauce coating the plate, the remnants of cracked peppercorns floating around the bottom. The cognac had given it this mysterious property, I can't put my finger on an accurate description, though I can say it's enlightening to find you don't need to drink the stuff to fully appreciate it. At the end, a piece of bread to mop it all up.
There's plenty more where that came from.
Thankyou Tony Bourdain, and the Les Halles cookbook.
It all started last Wednesday morning, as I walked home from Dewsons with a green bag full of marrow bones, a jar of tomato paste, carrots, celery, and onions.
I roasted all of those ingredients in my largest trays, the bones coated in tomato paste and flour. All of them ended up in my 24L stockpot, simmering away until the last minute before I had to leave for work on Thursday night.
When I checked on the chilled laundry tub of strained stock on Saturday (It took up half of my fridge space, most of the shelves had to be removed), it had formed an inch-thick lid of orange fat. That stock underneath was an almost opaque brown, it rested in an imperishable state.
On Sunday I pulled that seal off with a paring knife and a large spatula. All but a litre of the stock returned to the stockpot. As it warmed up I reduced on the side 2 litres of red wine and shallots down to 1 litre. This was then strained into the stockpot. I left the stock and wine to reduce down for another 24 hours.
By lunch today the 10 litres of stock had transformed into 1 litre of demi-glace. This is the stuff of gods. My little plastic tub held an almost solid, pudding-like brown-black mass. I was starting to get excited about tonight's dinner.
Much french cooking is based on the transformation of inexpensive and nasty ingredients into something special. Now making stock and demi-glace is a basic principle, but it's all about that magic that takes place over days of flavour interchange.
But then the recipe for the sauce I wanted to try called for something else. Cognac. This is often the case. There will be some gourmet ingredient that costs a fortune, most often because it's hard to get a hold of, or it needs to be imported. I bit the bullet and grabbed an $85 bottle of Hennessey.
One hour ago, it was on. I thought I'd try this out with a nice piece of fillet steak, crusted in cracked peppercorns, and some fries. Once the steak was seared off, I took it out of the pan and rested it.
All the stuff stuck to the pan is a major ingredient. A splash of the Cognac served to deglaze the pan. The first amazing smell reached my nose. Within seconds it changed from sharp and sweet, to aromatic and deep. I let this bubble away to half.
Next came four soup spoons of the dark beef stock, and one soup spoon of the demi-glace. The smell of this combination in the pan was almost a meal in itself. Again, I let it reduce down to half. It looked a bit like gravy, but it was so much more.
Almost done. I quickly threw the cooked chips and steak back into the oven to warm them up. I added a couple of spoons of butter into the sauce and stirred it through, quickly stacked my chips and steak onto a plate, and tipped the sauce over the lot.
Now That was something else. Such a dark, rich flavour, a thick coating texture, the statement made by the sauce coating the plate, the remnants of cracked peppercorns floating around the bottom. The cognac had given it this mysterious property, I can't put my finger on an accurate description, though I can say it's enlightening to find you don't need to drink the stuff to fully appreciate it. At the end, a piece of bread to mop it all up.
There's plenty more where that came from.
Thankyou Tony Bourdain, and the Les Halles cookbook.