Classic Glace Recipe

[project]

FANTASTIC! I LONG wondered about JUST that! Now you actually SAID it! Fantastic!

So, make a stock for flavor, partly following Escoffier, and for the gelatine just get a little package.

From what I heard about how gelatine is made, probably don't want to know! But, still, it's just gelatine.

[paulraphael]

FANTASTIC!  I LONG wondered about JUST that!  Now you actually SAID it!  Fantastic!

So, make a stock for flavor, partly following Escoffier, and for the gelatine just get a little package. 

From what I heard about how gelatine is made, probably don't want to know!  But, still, it's just gelatine.

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a couple of thoughts on gelatin ...

the height of popularity for gelatin-rich stocks was probably the 1970s, when nouvelle cuisine made it fashionable to substitute meat glace-based sauces for demiglace based ones.

it seems that using lots of gelatin has since gone out of style, since it has its own drawbacks. too much and you can get a kind of stick mouthfeel (gelatin is a traditional glue, after all ....). and it congeals when it cools, so you can have some issues with getting food to the table hot, and hoping people like it enough to gobble it up before the sauce gets gluey.

i treat gelatin as a nice byproduct (of the cheap, bony cuts that supply some roasted flavor, and keep the price reasonable compared with an all-meat stock). but i don't like to use so much that it can thicken the sauce by itself. that strikes me as too much. i've never seen the need to add refined gelatin to a stock or sauce.

[Mikeb19]

a couple of thoughts on gelatin ...

the height of popularity for gelatin-rich stocks was probably the 1970s, when nouvelle cuisine made it fashionable to substitute meat glace-based sauces for demiglace based ones.

it seems that using lots of gelatin has since gone out of style, since it has its own drawbacks. too much and you can get a kind of stick mouthfeel (gelatin is a traditional glue, after all ....). and it congeals when it cools, so you can have some issues with getting food to the table hot, and hoping people like it enough to gobble it up before the sauce gets gluey.

i treat gelatin as a nice byproduct (of the cheap, bony cuts that supply some roasted flavor, and keep the price reasonable compared with an all-meat stock). but i don't like to use so much that it can thicken the sauce by itself. that strikes me as too much. i've never seen the need to add refined gelatin to a stock or sauce.

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Just my personal thoughts on this and sauces in general (not what we did at the restaurant). I personally like rich meat broths, to thicken into a sauce just a little bit of potato starch and butter. Glace does get too sticky. I'm also not too fond of gelatin's mouthfeel in general, about the only thing I use it for is some foams.

About the oxtail jus - you basically get as much sauce as liquid that goes into the bag, and you use enough liquid to cover the contents of the bag. I never really measured

[paulraphael]

potato starch? that's one i haven't used. any reason you prefer to arrow root, or one of the others?

butter i understand!

[Mikeb19]

potato starch? that's one i haven't used. any reason you prefer to arrow root, or one of the others?

butter i understand!

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Potato starch - just what I'm used to using, and it works well. It's also readily available around here.

[paulraphael]

Reviving this thread from the murky depths.

I've been on a stock and glace bender, and have been researching and experimenting (involving quite a few ideas stolen shamelessly from Mikeb19, James Peterson, and Harold McGee.

It's been a departure, since my previous concoctions were all variations on the basic Escoffier approach.

I went back to Peterson's Sauces book and found reference to techniques similar to ones Mikeb19 mentions in this thread. I was also intrigued by Peterson's description of the 18th Century techniques of reusing braising liquid to braise another piece of meat, and then another ... the origins of the naturally thick and flavorfull coulis that chefs tried to immitate with demiglace, after the revolution.

The technique I'm using is similar to Mike's, where browned meat is simmered in stock that gets replenished as it reduces. But I'm simmering the meat in multiple batches, which allows the meat to stock ratio in the pot to stay fairly high, and more importantly, allows at least some of the juices extracted from the meat to escape long cooking. I believe that natural jus tastes fresher and more rounded than reduced stocks largely because they haven't been cooked as much. The results of this approach seem to support the idea.

My early attempts are promising ... easily the best glace/sauce base I've ever had, for whatever that's worth. I haven't had the pleasure of tasting a glace made by any great chefs (I've had sauces made by a couple of them, but I can't divinate what the individual components were like). But I've made some classic recipes, including some thoroughly unreasonable ones that would only make sense if the manor lord were buying the groceries. This beats them, in my limited experience and opinion.

This approach is about as time consuming as the classical ones. I counted 21 hours from stock to glace, spread over a couple of days. But it's cheaper. It uses bone stock, and a lot less meat than I'm used to using. When the meat is added at the end of the process, it seems to contribute a lot more.

Full recipe is here:

http://recipes.egullet.org/recipes/r2081.html

Still a work in progress; I'd be curious to hear any feedback.

[David Ross]

Thanks. You are the second person today to revive one of my older threads. Thank you. I will try your suggestions.

During the holidays I myself got into the depths of the Escoffier method. I had found the shortcut recipes promising, but those recipes wouldn't have answered my personal taste test issue of the Escoffier method versus newer methods.

I had to improvise though, I never found a source for scads of veal bones called for in Chef Escoffier's recipe-my reliable local butcher couldn't scare up 10 pounds of veal bones for a reasonable price.

But knowing I had to use bones with a gelatinous quality, I found my answer in the Asian market-chicken wings, duck feet and pigs feet. So I used those bones along with an adaptation of Escoffier's master recipe for a chicken glace recipe. It turned out pretty well. In fact, here is a photo from the dinner using the chicken glace (also posted in the 'Dinner' thread). The sauce was thick and what you might say 'unctuous' on the tongue, and had a very deep chicken flavor. The thick texture of the sauce came simply from the bones and vegetables and lots of reduction stages-no butter, no flour, no cornstarch.

Chicken, Polenta, Poulet 'Glace' with Mushrooms, Celery Victor:

[paulraphael]

  The thick texture of the sauce came simply from the bones and vegetables and lots of reduction stages-no butter, no flour, no cornstarch. 

No issues with it getting gluey when it cools off a bit? That's an issue I sometimes have with sauces that have piles of gelatin.

[David Ross]

  The thick texture of the sauce came simply from the bones and vegetables and lots of reduction stages-no butter, no flour, no cornstarch. 

No issues with it getting gluey when it cools off a bit? That's an issue I sometimes have with sauces that have piles of gelatin.

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I wouldn't say the texture was gluey, but when the sauce chills it has the consistency of jelly. But when I melt it down over a medium-low heat it is back to the perfect sauce consistency.

I'm currently reading a book written by a chef who worked at the Fairmont Hotel and Palace Hotel in San Francisco in 1908! He mentions in the book that the chefs often used flour and arrowroot to thicken their sauces. I would have thought that back then they wouldn't have used starches to thicken their sauces but what do I know. I guess it is a matter of settling on a method that suits your tastes and your level of patience.

[paulraphael]

I'm currently reading a book written by a chef who worked at the Fairmont Hotel and Palace Hotel in San Francisco in 1908!  He mentions in the book that the chefs often used flour and arrowroot to thicken their sauces.  I would have thought that back then they wouldn't have used starches to thicken their sauces but what do I know.  I guess it is a matter of settling on a method that suits your tastes and your level of patience.

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My sense is that up until the 1960s, French style cooking was was more or less dominated by flour thickened sauces. All the sauce Espagnole and demiglace recipes from the Careme and Escoffier eras were thickened at least partially with roux.

It was the chefs of the Nouvelle Couisine era that reacted against this, barring flour, and thickening sauces with highly reduced gelatin and reduced cream and butter. And cream. And butter. And did I mention cream? Part of their genius was in garnering a reputation for a lighter, less rich cuisine.

It's interesting that Escoffier predicted that flour would fall out of fashion, but I'm not sure if he had ideas about what would take its place.

I'm interested that they used arrowroot back then; I had assumed it was a more recent discovery. When I thicken with starch, it's often my first choice.

[TheSwede]

It's interesting that Escoffier predicted that flour would fall out of fashion, but I'm not sure if he had ideas about what would take its place.

...

Didn't he say something about "pure starch" as the future, or is my memory failing me (possibly from McGee?)? That would mean the potato or corn starch we use today. Did Escoffier ever use arrow root?

Edited January 9, 2008 by TheSwede (log)

[David Ross]

It's interesting that Escoffier predicted that flour would fall out of fashion, but I'm not sure if he had ideas about what would take its place.

...

Didn't he say something about "pure starch" as the future, or is my memory failing me (possibly from McGee?)? That would mean the potato or corn starch we use today. Did Escoffier ever use arrow root?

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The book I am reading is titled "The Life of a Chef" by Chef Edward F. Mathieu. The book was published in 1958, and chronicles the chefs life from his birth in France in the 1880's through his childhood, service in the French Cavalry and then his migration to New York. His most notable posts were at The Palace Hotel and Fairmont in San Francisco (when it opened after the big quake), and 30 years spent as the head chef of the Davenport Hotel in Spokane.

Chef Mathieu often refers to contacts he made with Escoffier and his son while he was still living in France. That's pretty impressive.

I will re-read the book to find Chef Mathieu's exact quotes about making stocks and using thickeners.

I know this is a bit off topic, but I wanted to share a few anecdotes from the book. At the end of the book there are some sauce recipes and they are quite interesting for us to read today-100 years after Chef Mathieu started as a young chef. These are some of the classic sauces that are rarely used or remembered today: Sauce Portuguese, Duglere Sauce for 'Fish,' and Cardinale Sauce for 'Fish.'

Even more interesting, the number of variations of cooking eggs that Chef Mathieu was trained to use in the kitchens of the St. Regis in New York, circa 1900:

Shirred:

Mirror, Bercy, Meyerber, Rothomago, Rossini, Melba, Hunter, Americane, Marine, Beurre Noir.

Poached:

Benedict, Monte Carlo, Grand Duke, Argenteuil, Aurora, Garlin, Vienna.

Cocotte:

Portuguese, Jeannette, Zingara, Marine.

Omelettes:

Creole, Mushroom, Reine, Princess, Chatelaine, Hunter Style, Farmerette, Savoy, Cardinale, Provencale, Lyonnaise, Fine Herbes.

Scrambled:

With kidneys, crab, mushrooms, truffles, chicken livers, asparagus tips, cheese, ham, bacon, shrimps, etc.

Au Gratin:

Florentine, Victoria, Tetrazine.

No wonder the true classics aren't seen on today's menus-Glace or Eggs!