Yummy and Delicious

"Brown sauce." It doesn't sound all that exciting when you say it like that. But try saying "Sauce Robert (roh-bare). Sauce Bordelaise. Sauce Chasseur. Or Marchand du Vin." Sounds a lot more appealing now, huh? That's what we did today. And here's what we did it with (speaker check - might be loud):


Mmmmmmm...... gelatinization! That's some of that brown veal stock (BVS) we started on Monday. The first thing we did was bring that up to a workable temperature. And then....

Espagnole. Start by getting some butter on the heat. We toss a mirepoix in there and sweat it a little. Then pincer (pon-say) with tomato paste until the paste is brick red. Then singer (son-zjay) with flour until the shine of butter is gone from the mirepoix. Now red wine and aromatics join the party. Simmer 30 minutes and now what do you have? A mother sauce. From here we went 4 directions with a possible 20 points per.

Sauce Robert. Sweat onions in butter with a pinch of salt. Once the shallots are just translucent, deglaze with white wine. As soon as the wine has reduced to almost a syrup, add dijon mustard. Stir in BVS, bring to temp. Now, monter au beurre (mount with butter) - take sauce off the heat and add what you think is too much butter and swirl the pan until it's successfully blended into the sauce. Taste. Season. Adjust. (TSA). Strain and serve. 19 - a little thin.

Marchand du Vin. Sweat shallots in butter with a pinch of salt. Deglaze with red wine. Again, reduce until almost a syrup, add BVS, monter au beurre, strain. We put this on a rocket hot plate and it broke. 16 - "plate killed sauce". Chef said it tasted like it was probably pretty good, but the butter separated from the sauce and ruined it.

Demi-glaze. We made our demi-glace/demi-glaze/"demi" with traditional preparation. We combined 50% Espagnole with 50% BVS and reduced it by half to create a wonderful meaty liquid. Nowadays the modern demi is just reduced BVS.

Bordelaise. This was fun. First, get a veal bone segment. Drop in rapidly boiling water for 10-12 seconds. WHACK it against the cutting board at an angle so the lovely morsel of fatty meat deliciousness sliiiiiides out. The marrow. Toss into a strainer with an equal amount of room temp butter and push em through! Slap that meaty butter on a piece of parchment and toss in the fridge:













NOW, sweat shallots in butter with a pinch of salt, add wine and thyme and reduce until almost syrup. Add demi. Monter au beurre with MARROW BUTTER!!!! Strain. Our sauce was about 60% butter. Chef's exact reaction, "That's yummy!" Yea. I made a chef instructor say "yummy".













Look at that sheen! 20 points - yummy.

Chasseur. Saute shallots in butter with a pinch of salt (see a theme here?). Add sliced field mushrooms, S&P. As soon as the mushrooms start to give off liquid, deglaze with white wine. As soon as the white wine is reduced, add demi and bring up to temp. Right when you're about to serve, add minced parsley and thyme. Give that a minute or so to blossom and monter au beurre. Add concassé tomato (Drop a tomato in rapidly boiling water for 45-60 seconds. Remove to ice bath. Peel. Cut out its insides. Fillet the tomato until there's nothing left but tomato meat. Square it off and dice the tomato fine.) Serve. 20 points - "delicious".













After Chef Waggoner tasted our Chasseur, he said, "This would be excellent with some chicken fricassee or" - the class next door in 102 was grilling steaks today. They brought some in for the chefs. He cut up a couple pieces of steak - "this." And he tossed it in our sauce: