Demiglas

Demiglas is one of the base sauces of the French culinary tradition. Also included in this list are bechamel, vinaigrette, French mayonnaise, velut and Dutch. They can be used as a base for preparing more complex sauces or a proven dish dressing. Demiglas goes well with meat dishes. French restaurants serve it by default with most meat dishes. But the use of sauce is not limited to juicy steaks. He also organically “works” paired with fish, vegetables or eggs. The chef can vary the composition of the demiglas or choose specific food processing techniques. It all depends on the characteristics of the dish, its component components, the imagination of the cook or the personal wishes of the client.

General product characteristics

Demi-glace is one of the basic sauces in French cuisine. It is prepared on the basis of beef bones, wine, spices and vegetables. All products except beef bones may vary. A chef or an ordinary consumer may prefer red or white wine, bell peppers or tomatoes, parsley root or tarragon. A set of products for a traditional demi-glace looks like this: red wine, allspice and black pepper, bay leaf, parsley root, carrots, onions of 3 varieties (shallot, onion and leek), beef bones. For an authentic taste, we recommend going to high-quality French restaurants, but it’s quite possible to think over new bright variations in your own kitchen.

Preparation of demiglas can take a whole day, provided that you clearly follow the recipe and want to bring the sauce to the desired taste and texture. To make life easier for the average consumer, large industrial companies began to produce packaged dry mix of demiglas, which simply needs to be diluted with a liquid or slightly stewed. If you decide to purchase such a substitute sauce, then carefully read the composition. It should not be superfluous ingredients, flavor enhancers and other achievements of the gastronomic industry. Agree, a trip to a French restaurant will be cheaper than treating the gastrointestinal tract after low-quality food.

The final taste of the sauce depends on the quality of the selected products. Do not skimp on fresh beef bones and, if possible, use fresh herbs and spices, not dry. This will give demiglas a special charm and an unimaginable palette of shades.

Historical information

Demiglas won the status of “sauce legend” in the gastronomic world is not by chance. A unique recipe appeared in the Middle Ages. The cooks of that time tried to experiment with familiar tastes and add their name to the culinary history. Sauces have become a real battleground for gastronomic titans. Virtually every French sauce quickly gained popularity and immediately passed into the category of world heritage.

Brief etymological reference: translated from French, the demiglas (demi-glace) sounds like “semi-ice”.

The sauce gained popularity thanks to the 19th century chef and gourmet Antonen Karem. It was he who decided to revive authentic French cuisine and slightly update the traditional recipes of sauces. For almost two centuries, all of Europe used Asian spices and herbs. Karem decided to distort the situation and called on all chefs to turn to the sources. It was on this wave of popularity that the demiglas rose, capturing not only France, but the whole world.

The sauce was on the 8 list of mother sauces, got a new reading and still does not lose the leading positions.

Chemical composition of the product

Use component in cooking

Demi-glace is classified under the category of “meat sauces”, although this statement is very vague. The component really harmonizes with all types of meat, regardless of the degree of fat content and taste palette, but it also works well paired with vegetable stews, grain or bean dishes. Moreover, demi-glace is an excellent base for other, more complex sauces.

Forget about bias, taste the true taste of demi-glace and find your own perfect pairings. Someone will be delighted with French sauce and pumpkin puree, and someone is ready to eat duck with demi-glace all day long. It’s just a matter of taste, and there’s no arguing about tastes. To feel the French cuisine, you need to develop the same taste in yourself – to distinguish between basic combinations, to understand the concept of the interaction of certain components. The main thing is to understand the system and learn to perceive taste not only as a whole, but also as a large-scale gastronomic mechanism.

Demi-class sauce recipe

The traditional demi-glace recipe requires a titanic effort and a colossal amount of time. If you are a culinary beginner, then practice making less complex French sauces, such as béchamel, vinaigrette, or velouté in chicken broth. Cooking demi-glace will take you 12 hours of life, and all cookbooks indicate the degree of difficulty of cooking as 5/5.

We need:

• beef bones – 1 kg;
• white wine – 500 ml;
• vegetable oil – 200 ml;
• onion – 150 g;
• carrots – 150 g;
• celery root – 150 g;
• celery stalk – 100 g;
• garlic – 100 g;
• fresh tomatoes – 100 g;
• leeks – 100 g;
• filtered water – 50 ml;
• tomato paste (you can just smash the peeled tomatoes in a blender) – 30 g;
• bay leaf – 2 g;
• allspice – 2 g;
• black peppercorns – 1 g.

Preparation

Chop the beef bones into small pieces. Grind carrots, onions and celery into small cubes, then fry in a pan (with a drop of vegetable oil for frying) for 5 minutes. Vegetables should become soft and acquire a light golden hue. Grind the tomatoes into small cubes and add to the pan. After adding the tomatoes, let the mixture simmer for 10-15 minutes.

While the vegetable mixture is being prepared, take care of the beef bones. Preheat the oven to 180°C and put the bones in there for 30-40 minutes. As soon as the product changes from gray to golden, take it out of the oven. Ready beef bones should be immediately mixed with processed vegetables.

A mixture of bones and vegetables should be put in a deep saucepan or stewpan, then pour in white wine, put on medium heat and boil lightly for 1-3 minutes. During this time, the alcohol should evaporate, and all the components of the dish will be saturated with a flavor and aroma palette. Pour in a small amount of filtered liquid, add bay leaf, pepper, your favorite spices and leave the saucepan to simmer over low heat for about 6-8 hours. It is important that the bones do not burn to the bottom, so stir the contents periodically. After the required time has elapsed, remove the saucepan from the heat, strain the sauce through a sieve into a clean saucepan. Put the filtered sauce back on a slow fire and cook for another 3-4 hours. As soon as the mass thickens and acquires a dense consistency, remove the pan from the heat and serve the desired demi-glace to the table.

Why traditional recipes can and should be changed

The age of the demiglas has already exceeded several hundred years. During this time, the gastronomic industry has significantly modernized, food habits have changed dramatically, and the population is increasingly thinking about their own health, rather than about tastes and combinations.

Of course, authentic dishes and recipes have a place in the modern gastronomic industry, but they are not in wide demand and are targeted at a specific limited audience.

Cookery, like other areas of life, must correspond to the generation. We can no longer afford too fatty beef broths and vegetables fried in vegetable oil. Moreover, few people agree to spend 12 hours behind the stove to make an exquisite French sauce.

We ourselves put everything on the conveyor (including the pace of life), so we can be distracted extremely rarely and on special occasions.

Do not forget that experiments are almost always good. Find your true face in cooking. As soon as you realize that you are blowing dust off old recipe tomes, you will notice that you are losing touch with the present. Feel free to replace frying with stew, beef bones with vegetable or fish broth and create your own sauce. Perhaps it will turn out like in a movie – when a young hooligan chef takes on experiments, thereby attracting a new audience and writing an absolutely amazing gastronomic story that can conquer the world.