MirepoixBrown roux, brown stock, and two hours of patient skimming. The deepest of the five and the parent of every red-wine and mushroom sauce.
| Time | |
|---|---|
| Servings | 4 |
| Difficulty | Hard |
| Equipment | Heavy saucepan, whisk, ladle, fine sieve, second pan |
- 30 g — butter
- 30 g — plain flour
- 700 ml — brown stock
- 50 g — smoked bacon
- 50 g — carrot
- 50 g — onion
- 30 g — celery
- 20 g — tomato purée
- 1 pc — thyme
- 1 pc — bay leaf
- 4 g — salt
60 g roux : 700 ml brown stock
- Melt the butter, stir in the flour and keep it moving over a medium flame for eight to ten minutes. It goes straw, then biscuit, then the colour of a hazelnut shell. Stop there. One shade further and it turns bitter and loses its power to thicken.
- In a second pan render the bacon, then sweat the carrot, onion and celery in the fat until the edges colour. Stir in the tomato purée and let it cook for two minutes until it darkens and stops smelling raw.
- Whisk the warm stock into the cooled roux, add the vegetables, thyme and bay, and bring it to the edge of a simmer. Pull the pan half off the heat so it bubbles at one side only.
- Now it is two hours of doing almost nothing. Skim the still side every fifteen minutes. Twice during that time, pour the sauce into a clean pan — everything that clings to the old one is what you are trying to remove.
- Strain through a fine sieve, pressing nothing through. You should have about half a litre, dark and glossy, thin enough to pour and thick enough to coat. Season at the very end, because it has been reducing the whole time.
Roast meat, braises, anything with red wine or mushrooms. Reduce it by half with more stock and it becomes demi-glace, which is where most of its children start.
Sauces in this library built on Espagnole
- Bordelaise: + shallot, dry red wine, cracked black pepper · − plain flour, smoked bacon, carrot, onion, celery, tomato purée, salt
- Chasseur: + button mushrooms, shallot, dry white wine, ripe tomatoes, tarragon, parsley · − plain flour, smoked bacon, carrot, onion, celery, tomato purée, thyme, bay leaf, salt
- Madère: + Madeira · − plain flour, smoked bacon, carrot, onion, celery, tomato purée, thyme, bay leaf, salt
- Robert: + dry white wine, Dijon mustard, sugar · − plain flour, smoked bacon, carrot, celery, tomato purée, thyme, bay leaf, salt
- Piquante: + shallot, white wine vinegar, dry white wine, cornichons, parsley · − butter, plain flour, smoked bacon, carrot, onion, celery, tomato purée, thyme, bay leaf, salt
- Diable: + dry white wine, shallot, cracked black pepper, white wine vinegar · − plain flour, smoked bacon, carrot, onion, celery, tomato purée, thyme, bay leaf
- Lyonnaise: + dry white wine, white wine vinegar · − plain flour, smoked bacon, carrot, celery, tomato purée, thyme, bay leaf
- Charcutière: + dry white wine, Dijon mustard, cornichons · − plain flour, smoked bacon, carrot, celery, tomato purée, thyme, bay leaf
- Italienne: + button mushrooms, shallot, dry white wine, parsley · − plain flour, carrot, onion, celery, thyme, bay leaf
- One serving (1 of 4): butter 7.5 g, plain flour 7.5 g, brown stock 175 ml, smoked bacon 12.5 g, carrot 12.5 g, onion 12.5 g, celery 7.5 g, tomato purée 5 g, salt 1 g
- Double batch (8 servings): butter 60 g, plain flour 60 g, brown stock 1,400 ml, smoked bacon 100 g, carrot 100 g, onion 100 g, celery 60 g, tomato purée 40 g, thyme 2 pc, bay leaf 2 pc, salt 8 g
In the same library
- Velouté — 40 min · Easy
- Béchamel — 30 min · Easy
- A clear stock is a skimmed stock — 15 min · Medium
- Roux: three colours, three jobs — 10 min · Easy
Source · Mirepoix · Auguste Escoffier, Le Guide Culinaire (1907), no. 22