Preparing Restaurant Quality Sauces
If you have spent any time on my web site, you know I am a huge fan of preparing sauces pan sauces, classic French style sauce and everyday simple sauces. As Fernand Point, the man considered to be the father of modern French cuisine said, "It is the sauce that distinguishes a good chef. The Saucier is a soloist in the orchestra of a great kitchen."
Now that may be taking it a bit far, but I do believe if you know how to prepare sauces, you can turn an ordinary sautéed chicken breast into something special. Same with a pork chop and even a steak that can usually stand on its own. See my Steak with Wild Mushroom Sauce or Grilled Steak with Peppercorn Sauce.
The trick to making great sauces at home is having the right ingredients. The reason professional chefs can serve you an incredible rich, velvety brown sauce in your favorite restaurant is because they have spent hours, sometimes days preparing stock reductions and demi-glaces.
Most of us home cooks don't have the time or the desire to put the time and effort into making classic stock reductions for soups, stews, braises and sauces. Sure, we have no trouble making a batch of chicken stock for homemade chicken soup but how many of you want to spend two days making a demi-glace? Not me.
Good News For Home Cooks
Good news for us is there are now companies making some very good commercial stock reduction products that we can use to make great sauces in our own kitchens. Some are better than others and it's my goal this year to try as many products as I can find and give them a taste test.
In the meantime, check out my article called Secret to Great Sauces Is Demi Glace. You learn what demi glace is, how is it used, where to find a great recipe for making it at home and where to buy commercial versions of it so you can make sauces like the best gourmet restaurant chefs. I can now make the same sauces that I've enjoyed in many of the fine restaurants I've been fortunate to dine at.
Commercial Restaurant Quality Demi Glace Products Are Now Available to Home Cooks
Below you will find a collection of available commercial demi glace products available at Amazon. There may be others, I know Williams Sonoma makes a version, but these are some of the bigger names in commecially sold demi glace. There are even a couple that are packaged and marketed to restaurants but I thought you might be interested in knowing about.
The ingredients vary as do the prices. I highly recommend you read through the different products and find one or two that meets you ingredient requirements and fits your budget. Give them a try and compare them with other products on the market to determine which one is best for you.
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
More Than Gourmet's Demi Glace Gold
joenel
I am a food lover.and i know how to make sauces. but I have learned much idea.great job.
Fernando
That pan looks awesome, may I ask what brand is it?
G. Stephen Jones
It is an old annodized aluminum Calphalon sauce pan I've owned for over 25 years and needs to be replaced soon.