The demi-glace is a valuable shortcut for crafting mouthwatering sauces that can save you hours in the kitchen.

HOW TO

This recipe technique appears in our first cook book, ‘French Cooking Academy: 100 Essential Recipes for the Home Cook’.

The demi-glace is a valuable shortcut for crafting mouthwatering sauces that can save you hours in the kitchen. It’s created by enhancing stock with meat trimmings, aromatics, wine, and thickening with flour. This home-friendly method balances quality with efficiency, allowing you to prepare a homemade demi-glace with ease. Once you master this technique to make excellent classic sauces in your kitchen, you'll never look back.

INGREDIENTS

Makes 11/4 cups (300 ml)

• 2 cups (500 ml) good-quality premade veal or chicken stock or bone broth (without salt or salt-reduced)

• 1 lb (500 g) chicken carcass or a combination of carcass and wings

• 1 tbsp (15 ml) cooking oil

• ½ carrot, diced

• ½ onion, diced

• 1 celery rib, sliced

• 1 clove garlic, halved

• 2 small button mushrooms, quartered

• 2 tsp (10 g) tomato paste

• 1 sprig thyme

• 1 bay leaf

• 1/3 cup (80 ml) full-bodied red wine or dry white wine

• 1 tbsp (8 g) toasted flour

• ½ tsp salt

• 1 tsp peppercorns

MISE EN PLACE

Bring the stock to a light boil and set aside.

Roughly chop the chicken carcass and/or wings.

Method

1. In a stockpot or large heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat the oil over medium-high heat and sear the chicken pieces for 10 to 12 minutes, or until the meat is a deep brown but not burnt. Scoop out the meat pieces and set aside. Remove any excess fat from the pot.

2. Lower the heat to medium, and stir in the carrot, onion, celery, garlic, and mushrooms, and cook for 2 minutes. Add the tomato paste, thyme, and bay leaf and stir well. Pour in the wine and deglaze by scraping the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon to detach and blend the caramelized juices into the liquid. Reduce until roughly 2 tablespoons (30 ml) of liquid remain.

3. Return the chicken pieces to the pot and stir in the toasted flour before pouring in the stock and adding the salt and peppercorns.

4. Wait for the liquid to come to a boil, then simmer for 30 minutes to reduce the liquid by roughly half, occasionally removing any foam that forms on the surface.

5. Remove the pot from the heat and let the demi-glace cool for 15 minutes before straining it through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl.

6. The demi-glace can be used immediately, kept in the fridge for 3 days, or frozen for several months.

TIP

When using the demi-glace to make certain sauces, the wine can be replaced with red port or Madeira wine.