22.4 Demi-glace sauces

Espagnole, the brown sauce

Espagnole means "Spanish". French cooks argue over how the name came about. One story holds that the Spanish cooks of Anne, bride of Louis XIII, added Spanish tomatoes to the French brown sauce for the wedding feast.

Espagnole is a full-bodied, strong brown sauce, seldom put straight on food. It is made from brown stock thickened with brown roux, with mirepoix (diced onion, carrot and celery) and tomato purée. Its main job is to become demi-glace.

To make 4 L (1 gal.):

• Caramelize 1 kg (2 lb) of medium-diced mirepoix well in 250 ml (8 fl oz) of clarified butter.
• Add 250 g (8 oz) of flour and cook it into a brown roux.
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• Add 5 L (5 qt) of brown stock and 250 g (8 oz) of tomato purée, stirring out any lumps, bring to a boil and turn down to a simmer.
• Add a sachet of herbs and spices.
• Simmer about 1½ hours, letting it reduce and skimming as needed.
• Pass it through a cheesecloth-lined china cap, then season.

Demi-glace

Demi-glace is equal parts espagnole and brown stock, reduced by half, usually finished with a little Madeira or sherry. To make 1 L (1 qt), simmer 1 L of each together until half is left, then strain. It gives finer small sauces than espagnole used directly, because its base is richer.

A good demi-glace is rich, smooth and free of lumps, with a strong roasted flavor from the browned bones in the stock and no taste of roux. Caramelized bones, mirepoix and tomato give it a glossy color so dark it is nearly chocolate. It should coat food and stay on it, yet never feel pasty or heavy.

Jus lié

Jus lié (also fond lié) does the same job as demi-glace but is lighter and quicker. There are two ways to make it:

• Thicken a rich brown stock with cornstarch or arrowroot, and season it. This is fast, but the sauce is only as good as the stock.
• Simmer and reduce a rich brown stock until its gelatin and other proteins thicken it. This usually tastes better, but costs more in food and time.
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A good jus lié is very rich, smooth, dark brown and glossy from its gelatin. It is a little thinner than demi-glace but still clings lightly to food.

Gravy from a roast's jus

Here a gravy means a jus, the natural juices of a roast, thickened with flour. If only a little jus is left in the pan:

• Boil it down on the stove until it caramelizes.
• Pour off all but a spoonful or two of fat.
• Cook flour in the pan for 2 or 3 minutes.
• Add stock, water or another liquid.

If a lot of jus is left:

• Pour it off and skim the fat.
• Make a roux in the roasting pan with some of the fat or fresh butter.
• Whisk the jus back in until smooth and thick.

Flour added at the last minute has little time to cook, so some cooks deglaze the pan with an already thickened velouté or espagnole instead, and leave out the roux.

Small brown sauces

Each small sauce starts from 1 L (1 qt) of demi-glace or jus lié and ends with salt and pepper to taste. Most begin with a reduction of wine and shallots, and many end with butter swirled in.

The small sauces of the espagnole family.

Cooling and holding brown sauces

A finished brown sauce is either cooled in a water bath or kept hot for service. Gravy, and any food containing meat, counts as a potentially hazardous food (PHF), one that lets bacteria grow if it sits at room temperature.

• Holding. Hold hot sauce at 60°C (140°F) or above, and reheat it to 74°C (165°F), kept there 15 seconds or more, before it goes into the hot-holding unit.
• Cooling. Cooked food must fall to 20°C (70°F) from 60°C (140°F) within two hours, then to 4°C (40°F) within four more. A pot of 4 L (1 gal.) or more, which is the size of the espagnole batch, can take a day or longer to cool in a walk-in, so stir it in an ice-water bath or split it into shallow pans.
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The full rules for cooling, holding and reheating are with the rest of food safety. see chapter 2: Heat: cooling, holding and reheating