How to Make the Very Best Sauce for Steak
My youngest daughter who is just 6 years old has to do a report at school on what her favorite food is. Most of the kids are reporting on macaroni and cheese, pizza, pasta with butter but Maddie is going to talk about filet mignon with demi glace sauce.
Yeah, one of the oddities of being the Reluctant Gourmet's daughter. Not that Maddie is an adventurous eater, especially when it comes to meats (she doesn't even like hamburgers) but for some strange, unexplainable reason she loves steak, especially filet Mignon with a rich brown sauce I make with demi-glace.
If you have spent any time on my web site, you will see I love to make sauces for beef, sauces for chicken, sauces for fish, hey, I just like to make sauces. I really believe anyone can learn how to sauté a chicken breast or grill up a strip steak, but if you want to serve your family and friends a meal that's going to really "wow" them, you need to serve it with a rich, lush, delicious sauce.
Whether it's using my 5 Step Method for Preparing Quality Brown Sauces or Making an Incredible Pan Sauce, you need to start with the right ingredients. Most of the ingredients you already have at home including butter, shallots (or onion), red wine, some fresh or dried herbs (fresh are better) depending on the sauce you are making but the one ingredient you most likely don't have is demi-glace.
Why? Because real demi-glace is a pain to make at home. You need pounds of veal and beef bones and you better have a lot of time on your hands reducing the brown stock to a glace without burning it.
This is why professional chefs are always reducing stocks in their kitchens so they always have demi and other stock reductions on hand to prepare those rich, velvety sauces.
Restaurant Quality Demi Glace is Available
There are a several well received commercial demi-glace products now on the market. Williams Sonoma has a demi-glace, but they also have a Marsala sauce that is prepared from demi-glace that is very good.
Below are a selection of some of the most popular demi glaces I could find being sold at Amazon. I have tried them all and they are all good but different in ingredients, cost and to some taste. I think it's important you look at each one, read about it, check out the reviews and determine which one is right for you.
What's so amazing about having these commercial demi glace product available now, I can now make restaurant quality sauces in less than 20 minutes that are as good as any that I've been served in some very good restaurants.
Check out my Grilled Steak with Peppercorn Sauce or Wild Mushroom Sauce. And if you ever thought about making a classic, restaurant quality Marsala Sauce, you'll need demi-glace.
My Top Choices for Demi Glace
Online Sources: Demi Glace
For those of you who do not want to make demi glace at home.
Demi glace is the most important ingredient for making classic "restaurant quality" brown sauces. All the great French brown sauces use demi glace. But it can also be used in soups, stews and braises. It's something you can make at home but it takes a long, long time to do it right and if you make one mistake, it can easily be ruined. Lucky for us, there are now some great sources for commercial grade demi glace and I want to share a few with you now. Everyone has their preferences so I suggest you give each a try to find out which product you like best.Savory Choice's Demi Glace
Ready in minutes, Savory Choice beef demi glace allows home chefs to deliver impressive restaurant-quality meals quickly and cost-effectively. Professional chefs typically take at least 24 hours to prepare this traditional reduction sauce by simmering stock, vegetables, wine and spices to a velvety consistency.More Than Gourmet's Demi Glace Gold
One of my first commercial demi glace products and still one of my favorites. For almost 25 years, More Than Gourmet has been the gold standard for flavor and quality when it comes to sauces, stock, and soup. This product comes in 1 pound tubs and 1.5 ounce pucks and even bigger sizes if you are a commercial establishment. I like buying 6 of the pucks at a time unless I'm doing a big party and need the pounder.
Rob Allee
I know what you mean, I made some demi, which I am very proud of, and added some reduced pomegranate juice, over filet mignon, my kids loved it, not counting my wife and mother-inlaw.
Good demi is hard to make, time consuming, but very rewarding when you use it.
"In the orchestra of the kitchen, the Saucier is the soloist"
-Fernand Point
Liam Price
Beef steak has always been my all time favorite dish and i am always looking for some new recipes that has steak as the main ingredient.