R E C I P E S
Red Wine Sauce (Sauce Bordelaise)
The distinction between this, also known as sauce bordelaise, and its red-wine counterpart in Burgundy was that the latter was made with wine and seasonings only, no veal glaze, and thickened with a flour-and-butter beurre manié. The recipe that follows is a great example of how veal glaze can add richness and depth while letting the heady wine flavors come shining through. Somewhere along the line, astute cooks eliminated the flavor overload of thyme and bay leaf from the reduction and stopped finishing the sauce with butter.
35 gr (6 tablespoons) finely chopped shallots
175 ml (¾ cup) red wine
175 ml (¾ cup) veal glaze
salt and pepper to taste
In a small pan, combine the shallots and wine, and reduce the mixture very slowly — about 30 minutes — to one-third to one-fourth of the original volume. The acridity of the shallots will give way to sweetness.
Add the veal glaze, and reduce again, this time to sauce consistency. Season with salt and pepper. If the wine was very tannic, a tablespoon of Madeira will remove its edge. For less-acid wines, a few drops of lemon juice will bring things into focus. Escoffier disapproved of finishing the sauce with butter because it lightens the sauce’s vibrant, winey color (and he was right).
Read James MacGuire’s “Classic French Sauces.”
From issue 85
