Conquering My Fear of Demi-Glace
Sep 28th, 2009 | By Hank | Category: Cooking Basics, French, Wild Game | Comments | 13 Comments |
I am generally a fearless cook, but the notion of demi-glace has always scared me a little. Not the abject terror that making a perfect terrine loaded with precisely centered “interior garnish” might evoke; it’s more of an unease.
And I have a confession: I have made demi-glace exactly twice before last week. Once was so salty it was inedible, the other burned beyond recognition. Demi-glace is such a classic Frenchy sort of thing, and I cook Italian and Spanish all the time, and, and, and… excuses, excuses.
I ran out of those excuses earlier this month when I found myself with 14 wild ducks and geese in my kitchen. Yes, they were dead. They were given to me by my friends at the California Waterfowl Association for a fundraising luncheon I was catering on their behalf, and I broke them down to make a duck version of the mustard barbecued hare I’ve made with great success, as well as a raft of simply grilled duck breasts.
So there I was, with a boatload of carcasses. Yeah, I know “real” demi-glace is made with veal bones, but I have yet to find a humane veal operation (they exist, by the way; no cages.) so until then I will not buy veal. I automatically decided on making duck stock, but realized that I am about to head to Winnipeg to hunt ducks and geese and would, if I shoot straight, come home with a bunch of birds to make stock from — and even I have limits on how much stock I can use. So I’d need to concentrate this stock for space reasons.
Demi-glace called to me. For those who don’t know, demi-glace is a classic French “sauce” that sets up solid in the fridge. It is a hyper-concentrated stock-and-sauce espagnole combination that is used to make pan sauces or soups richer. Think of it as a really, really cool bouillon cube.
I was going to do this, goddamnit. I was going to pay attention and do my research and not screw this up. I was going to make demi-glace. Finally.
Having done it now, let me say at the start that making demi-glace is a massive pain in the ass. Because I work for a living, I cannot tend it for the 12 hours it needs — so I made it over three days.
First comes the stock. I salted and grilled the carcasses until they were a lovely brown, then simmered them for 6 hours. No veggies. They came in on Day 2. I sweated onions, carrots and celery in some duck fat and then added some homemade tomato paste and cooked it some more. When it was done, I added it to the duck stock and cooked it all for just under 2 hours.
(Click here for the full demi-glace recipe.)
Thus endeth Day 2. On the final day I made a roux with 2 cups canola oil (I didn’t have 2 cups of duck fat, but that would have been ideal) and just under 2 cups of flour. I cooked that until it turned the color of coffee and cream — the color of the final demi-glace, as it turned out.
Whisk in the hot duck stock and you have a pretty veloute. I then cooked that down for a bit more than 2 hours, until it got pretty thick. Off the heat it went and into a flat Tupperware to cool. It set up fast, and was the consistency of tofu by morning.
Mmmm… ducky tofu… I would love to give someone one of these cubes and tell them it was a caramel. Maybe I’ll do this to Garrett…
So what was so scary? The time involved, quite frankly. I was occupied with this project for a Sunday and two weeknights in a row, all the while wondering, “Is this right? Is this how it is supposed to be?” I’ve seen demi-glace that was as dark as molasses and syrupy, and that’s good, too. But I read a dozen recipes for demi-glace — including the master recipe in the CIA textbook — and I’m pretty sure this is standard in structure, if not ingredients. Any CIA-trained people out there? Bottom line is that I’d do it again.
But how does it taste, you ask? Look at the food porn photo at the beginning of this post. See that sauce? Yeah, baby…
That dish is still something of a work in progress. It starts with a Patagonian potato galette made with duck fat — a variant of the excellent recipe in my new favorite grilling book, Seven Fires: Grilling the Argentine Way
The sauce is a riff off something I found in Paula Wolfert’s The Cooking of Southwest France
Topping it all was some snow goose breasts I grilled simply (here’s my technique for searing off duck breasts in a pan.) and salted well. A little parsley for color and a Boeger rose from El Dorado and we were in business. The dish really comes together when you get a bite with sauce, goose and potato all at once — crispy, meaty, salty, sharp, deep and luscious all at the same time.
As for the demi? I will freeze it in little containers for later. After all, duck season is about to start…
Other Adventures with Demi-Glace
- Sauce Espagnole and Demi-Glace, from Whisk: A Food Blog
- Holiday Leftovers Make Demi-Glace, from Slashfood.
- Veal Demi-Glace: A Recipe with Two Key Ingredients – Patience and Will, from Angela’s Food Love
- Saveur’s Recipe for Demi-Glace
Hank, your fearlessness inspires me. I have been making it a point lately of tackling things that I had previously deemed “too hard”.
I love demi-glace because of it’s wonderful body and “mouth-feel” that it adds to sauces. What scares me, though, is how much it has to reduce. I find it so depressing to go through all the effort and end up with only 1 cup.
That sauce sounds incredible.
I have a container of duck fat in my freezer. Now, if I could get my hands on fourteen duck carcasses and a giant stockpot…
wowza, that is some serious amount of time put into a rather amazing little cube.
Hats off to you. I have always wondered about demi, and never had the time to make it.
You have made it look pretty darn incredible, and also made it sound accessible, especially for people that cannot spend 12 hours in the kitchen at one go.
You keep raising the bar, Hank. I’ve been on a ratatouille kick of late, probably making it over a dozen times in the past 2 months! I recently found the recipe from the animated movie, a Confit Byaldi, and like your assessment with the 1/16 in slices, I think I’ll cut my veggies thicker but use those same techniques with my next attempt. Getting pretty good, methinks.
Oh, you probably already know this, however, the images in your posts are not showing when I am reading you in my RSS reader (Google Reader). Not sure about other applications, but you might want to check it out. Of course, it did bring me through to your site. Maybe that’s your devious plan?
JDK.
I know a guy downriver who raises ‘humane’ veal. He doesn’t cage them, he gives them all a Gameboy.
This sounds really intense… but good. Hope you have a great time in Winnipeg. The weather is a bit chilly already and it might rain next week but at least there won’t be snow flying!!! (knock on wood!!!)
You too with the veal, eh.
I thought I might be the only meat eating fellow that felt that way.
I feel better now.
Best regards,
Albert
Why I Carry a Gun
Real Men Hunt
No veal here, either, Albert. I like my animals to get to be animals.
Awesome, awesome, awesome. I find these long cooking projects the most fun to do (when they turn out right, at least.) Made a duck jus myself several weeks ago without veal bones similar to your demi. Just a straight up reduction, which of course, yielded very little, but the flavor was so intensely-ducky, I’m glad I didn’t use veal bones.
By the way, your technique of grilling the carcasses for stock is new to me, does it impart a different flavor than with roasted bones?
Is this demi glace or Glace de Viande? One of those culinary questions that makes one crazy. Demi is 1/2 or partially… so glace de viande is the thicker one, yes?
Oh please help on this one? I just made glace de viande and it is still malleable in the freezer, so you can bend off a Tb or two. Whatever it is called… it is a pain to make but what a pay-off!! It makes any pan sauce great.
Deana: This is demi-glace. I may do a post on glace de viande, or its wild game equivalent, at some point. Viande is the thicker one. And you bet it makes any pan sauce better!
Hank… it’s great to have found your blog… thanks for responding. Your posts are so interesting… acorn flour??? Who knew. I look forward to a beautiful blogship here!