Demi Glace - The Topic

[hollis]

so i just started to make my own beef and chicken stocks and i'm curious how i can make demi-glace from the stock? i'm quite new and enthusiastic in the kitchen so keep that in mind if your willing to help. thanks in advance

hollis

[Ruth]

Basically you strain and defat your stock and then reduce it until it reaches a syrupy texture. You can do this with a veal, beef, or any brown poultry stock.

[Malawry]

As you reduce it, don't boil it hard--I usually reduce at a slow boil or heavy simmer. Move it into progressively smaller pots as you reduce its volume to help prevent burning. Straining well is important to avoid concentrating impurities--several runs through a chinois helps, as does sticking around to remove any scum as it reduces. Demi is a beautiful thing.

[irodguy]

Also (okay I know this is heresy!) you can freeze it. I gather bits of left over meat in the freezer until it's Demi making time. Then I make a large batch. I freeze it in small containers ready to make a sauce on a moments notice.

[Malawry]

Oh no, that's not heresy. That's how you cook efficiently. I'm amazed at how quickly I amass useful bits of things, at work especially.

[Marlene]

Or you can be like me and buy it at William Sonoma. Seriously, now that I've mastered confit, stocks and demi glace are next on my list of things to master this winter.

We're expecting a lot of snow up here this year. I'll have time.

[Dave the Cook]

I'm sure there's an eGCI lesson on this. Maybe someone less lazy than me could link it? Please?

[Marlene]

As you reduce it, don't boil it hard--I usually reduce at a slow boil or heavy simmer. Move it into progressively smaller pots as you reduce its volume to help prevent burning. Straining well is important to avoid concentrating impurities--several runs through a chinois helps, as does sticking around to remove any scum as it reduces. Demi is a beautiful thing.

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Move to progressively smaller pots? I think I need to put more pots on my christmas list!

[markk]

Fat - in this case, grease or oil, will "break" the final the final reduced sauce, so it's essential that you de-grease your stock before reducing.

A hint: the thickness of the sauce is helped by the gelatin that's in veal bones, and roasting some "breast of veal" bones and adding them to your stock to simmer and release their flavor and gelatin is always a great idea.

If you're intrigued by this sauce (and who wouldn't be?), you'll enjoy the book "The Saucier's Apprentice" by Raymond Sokolov which will tell you way more than you need to know about 'demi glace' and 'sauce Espagnol' and all the dozens related sauces along the reduction way, and which is probably available very cheap on half.dom

[fifi]

I am out of demi-glace which is seriously inhibiting my next batch of onion confit. I guess I will have to gear up to do that. I have never done veal, always beef, because finding veal is hard enough, much less bones. And the cost! Oy! Does anyone have any strategies for getting some veal bits for making stock without having to empty out the 401k?

I have a rather large Windsor pan sort of like this one, but the older style. That is what I use to make the demi-glace. I really don't do a bunch of straining. I put the stock in a large, tallish container and put it in the fridge. While it sits cooling enough to do that, the grunge settles to the bottom. Then, after it is cold, I take the fat off and spoon off the stock (it is usually somewhat jelly-like) leaving the stuff in the bottom. (I actually usually make a small pot of soup with a few cups of stock that I leave in the bottom.) The clear stuff from the top goes into the Windsor pan and I put it on at a very low simmer. I do this when I am going to be putzing around anyway so I check on it ever so often and skim if necessary. I don't change pots or anything. (Sorry, Marlene. You are going to have to find another excuse to get more pots. )

My favorite thing to store this stuff in is the little wide mouth 1/2 cup canning jars. They are getting hard to find, though.

[deltadoc]

Those are some of the modern ways of making demi-glace.

There is also the classic technique of making the stock first. Then browning a roux and mirepoix to which you add the stock you just made and create the Espagnole (or brown) Sauce. From there you could follow Escoffier's recipe of 1 Qt of Brown Stock + 1 Qt of Espagnole, reduced down to .9 QT to which you add .1 QT of sherry.

My wife found these little stainless steel bowls with nice tight fitting lids. We cool off the demi-glace in a cold water basin, and then fill these little bowls and freeze them.

Leftover stock could be:

1. Canned for later use

2. Reduced down 90% to a glace de viande. GDV can be frozen or kept tightly covered in the refrigerator for quite a long time.

3. Make some soup.

I use veal neck bones and beef neck bones. They sell for exactly the same price at Byerly's in St. Paul. The St Paul stockyard also has veal neck bones cheaper than Byerly's, and their beef neck bones are really cheaper than Byerly's.

doc

[fierydrunk]

Hollis may surprise me and actually be able to understand exactly how to make demi-glace from your kind posts, but as he stated, he JUST started making his own stocks and I think he may need a really basic explanation, with definition of some of the terms so he doesn't have to ask the chef at work to translate the recipe. Fifi's description seemed to be almost spot on, but I lost track of it at some point. For example, does the demi-glace come from cooking the fat scraped off the top or the stuff that fell to the bottom?

[Dave the Cook]

I'm sure there's an eGCI lesson on this. Maybe someone less lazy than me could link it? Please?

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Apparently, there is no one here less lazy than me.

Here it is: eGCI unit on stock-based sauces. It's the fourth unit on stocks. Demi glace is at the end, but that makes sense, given that it's the end product of a long chain of tasks.

All of the stock units in eGCI are well worth reading -- or re-reading.

[RETREVR]

To make espangol you really want to brown the hell out of the carrots and make your roux.

We used to make a real demi now and then. When it is cooled, it is so hard you could make a flack jacket out of it.

But for most uses we would use a demi-demi, which is a reduced veal stock tightened up with a little starch. Very versatile. Usable on even fish and chicken.

Bassically brown veal bones(in the oven) and any meat trimmings you may have, put in a pot with mire poix (sp) and fill with cold water. Bring to simmer, skim, and continue till the next morning or longer. Strain and continue to reduce. When you have good gelatin, color, and flavor, tighten it up a little with corn starch.

Like I said, this was not intended to be a true demi, but it is very versatile and can hold together a lot of pan sauces.

Edited October 27, 2004 by RETREVR (log)

[Carolyn Tillie]

Demi glace is NOT just ultra-reduced stock. As deltadoc indicated, it is concentrated by the act of the stock being added to additional mire poix and re-reduced.

[fierydrunk]

Thank you, Dave the Cook!!!!!! That is perfect.

[Dave the Cook]

Thank you, Dave the Cook!!!!!!  That is perfect.

Thank Carolyn Tillie and Fat Guy. I just set up the link.

[fifi]

OK... I went back and reread the course. I will now have to change my wording. I do not make demi-glace. Who knew. I started reducing down the stock out of necessity when I went from a house with a freezer to an apartment with a paltry refrigerator freezer. Then I found new uses for this concentrated loveliness. It adds a silky texture to my onion confit. I glazed a roast with some once to rave reviews. A few tablespoons of chicken concentrate in the long cooked green beans is incredible. Etc., etc. etc.

So, what do you call a product that is cooked down from several quarts of stock to a couple of cups of goo?

[Placebo]

Tasty.

[Malawry]

Fifi, that goo is what we called demi at my culinary school. We called the roux kind "ye olde" demi. (We made it once and it really is tasty, but it's a much bigger PITA than straight reduction demi. I think there are very few professionals making ye olde demi these days--I've only seen straight-reduction demi personally.

[fifi]

Ok... I may have to do the "ye olde" demi just to say I have done it one of these days. Maybe I will continue to call my reduciton "goo" until then.

[deltadoc]

That "goo" is Glace de Viande. It is approximately a 90% reduction of brown stock.

Demi-glace means "half glaze" and is not such a drastic reduction.

Glace is basically a "full glaze".

I heartily recommend "ye olde demi" as I make it all the time at home, and it is a labor of pure love. It is the technique taught in Wayne Gisslen's Professional Cooking, which is the text book for the French Culinary Institute, among others. I read where his text is the most widely used in culinary schools of any text book.

The CIA's text, Professional Cook, has a similar method for demi-glace.

doc

[RETREVR]

Thats why I call what I make a "demi-demi" or a half demi, or a half half , which works out to a quarter. A quarter-glaze, is a pretty accurate description of what I make. The final pan reduction, or lack there of, can determine what type of sauce you want. It is light enough unreduced to improv a pan sauce for halibut. Or if you reduce it in the final pan sauce, it is flavorfull enough to make a brown sauce. Where a ye olde demi is very specific, both in definition and the sauces you make. You basically derive your brown sauces and improvosations upon them. Glace de viande, is simply sin. It is to be used only after sex. Anything following will just be a disapointment.

[fiftydollars]

The last time I made veal stock I tried completing the reduction per Jaques Pepin’s glace de viande instructions in his book, Complete Techniques. He calls for reducing the stuff until all of the moisture has been evaporated.

I found this extremely difficult the last time I tried it. The very first time a few years ago, with the generous aid of beginner’s luck, I managed to finish the reduction successfully, which according to Pepin is when large bubbles appear and pop, but release no steam.

The last time I tried it, a couple of months ago or so, I had a terrible time keeping a workable simmer at the ridiculously low temperatures required to keep the goo from burning and no matter how I tried, the bubbles never stopped releasing steam.

Nonetheless, the resulting product is great. It is a super concentrated shot of beef flavor whenever you need it. At room temperature the stuff resembles dark brown plastic. Combined with a little butter and some Madeira it makes a hell of a glaze for vegetables or steaks. Definitely worth making if you have a spare 20lbs. of veal bones and about 50 hours.

[fifi]

Glace de viande, is simply sin. It is to be used only after sex.

oops