I recently had a go at making my own Escoffier demi-glace. If you’re sticking to the the true Escoffier version of demi-glace then you will be needing a recipe for Escoffier’s espagnole sauce, one of the 5 mother sauces. Many chefs today skip the espagnole sauce stage when making demi glace, but I really wanted to do according to the master.
The issue I had was finding an espagnole sauce recipe that I could easily translate to the volume of stock I had made. Since I spent 16 hours making stock and a 2nd stock from the same bones (remouillage) I didn’t want to make any mistakes.
The issue I had with the espagnole sauce recipe was that the recipe differed substantially from site to site and in fact one espagnole sauce recipe nearly had me make a roux (butter and flour) that 4 times what I needed! This would have been a disaster.
Anyway, enough waffle – I finally found the information I was looking for and am recording it for future reference and for you also if you’re interested.
Espagnole Sauce Recipe Ingredients
- 1 ltr beef stock (home made is best)
- 30g butter
- 30g flour
- 200g mirepoix (mirepoix are the veggie component of stocks and sauces, see below for the ratio’s):-
- 30g diced carrot
- 30g chopped celery
- 100g diced onion
- bouquet garni (1 bay leaf and 2 sprigs each of parsley and thyme)
Making the Espagnole Sauce Recipe
- Melt butter in the pan, add the mirepoix and saute until slightly brown
- Sprinkle in the flour and whisk or stir until there are no lumps – continue to cook until you have a caramel colour
- Slowly add the stock a little at a time, stirring constantly
- Add the bouquet garni.
- Bring to the boil and allow to gently simmer until the sauce has reduced by one third. This should take about an hour.
- Pass through a sieve to remove any solids.
And that’s it! To make demi-glace you basically use a quantity of espagnole sauce and the same amount of beef (or traditionally veal if you can get it) stock. You then reduce by half.
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