House-Made Demi Glaze Demo

So, I have this awesome food competition coming up this month in Charlotte. I've entered into both a K4 hot food and B1 cold food categories. I'll post some info on that soon.

The sauce for my K4 (1 hour hot food category where Bone-In Lamb Loin is the protein) is going to be a rosemary lamb demi glaze. Since the initial demi takes so long to make, I've decided to make it today and freeze it. A couple days before the event, I'll just pull it out and it'll be thawed and ready for service. Of course, we can't actually BRING any finished demi with us, we are however allowed to bring a double beef stock and reduce it on site. That works out a lot better anyway because it gives me more control over the finished sauce.

Anyway, thought I'd share with you this process of making one of my favorite sauce bases. Being as scratch made is ALWAYS better when it comes to sauces and stocks, I want to show you that, even though this process is lengthy, it's very easy and inexpensive to make yourself.

Check out the pics and info below:

Line your beef or veal bones on a sheet pan.

Rub them down with canola oil.

Roast them in a 375F oven until very brown, turning occasionally, for about 2 hours, more or less.

They should look like this when done.

Roughly chop some mire poix (50% onions, 25% carrots and 25% celery) into large chunks. After removing the roasted bones, put the veg onto the same pan and rub them down with about a 1/2 cups of tomato paste.

Roast them, turning occasionally, until caramelized.

Add the roasted vegetables to the roasted bones in a large stock pot, place the sheet pan over a burner or two on medium heat and deglaze with about 1/2 cup of red wine and some water. Bring to a simmer, scraping the pan well, reduce slightly and add that liquid with all your new-found bits in with the vegetables and bones.

Add any vegetable scraps you may have laying around (no carrot or onion skins, they will make things bitter!) along with about 6 bay leaves, a tablespoon of whole peppercorns and a bunch of fresh thyme, to the stock pot and cover in COLD water.

Bring this liquid JUST to a boil, reduce heat to a medium simmer (bubbles should barely break the surface)...



...and remove any scum/ foam that may float to the top with a ladel.

Let that large pot of goodness simmer for about 12 hours. This will extract great things out of your roasted bones, veg and herbs. The liquid by itself is an awesome beef broth/ stock, but you can reduce this liquid in a smaller pot to about half and get a really rich double stock or demi glaze. This reduction is great as a base for other sauces such as Espanole.

Some of the finished product. After it cools you will see a film of beef fat on top, just skim that off, enjoy or freeze for a later time.