Beef Glace de Viande
This past
weekend was about making demiglace. Actually, I ended up making beef glace de viande.
This is one of the ingredients that is needed for the sauce for the quails in
Babette’s Feast.
What’s the
difference between demiglace and beef glace de viande?
Demiglace is
actually any rich stock or broth that is reduced by half or three-quarters to
enrich it – leaving it still a relatively thin liquid. Glace de viande is made
the same way, but it is reduced by a factor of 8 – 10, has a thick, syrupy or
paste-like consistency and is much richer.
Here’s how I
made mine. Some folks would add cooked tomatoes or tomato paste. However, my
wife can’t have those due to medical reasons. So, you won’t find any in this.
Ingredients:
5 – 6 lbs of
beef bones. I was fortunate to find beef feet. Worked great.
1 lb or more
of venison bones.
4 large
onions (3 of which are quartered, 1 of which is chopped up for the mirepoix)
6 cloves
garlic, unpeeled, cut in half and slightly crushed
6 stalks of
celery, with leaves (4 stalks cut in 2 inch pieces, 2 chopped up for the mirepoix)
5 large
carrots (3 cut in 2 inch pieces, 2 chopped up for the mirepoix)
1 bunch
parsley
6 bay leaves
1 teaspoons
of whole black peppercorns
1 bottle of
red wine
½ teaspoon
of thyme
4 ounces (1
stick) butter, clarified
4
tablespoons of flour
lardons
Set aside all
the mirepoix ingredients for later. Divide the rest of the onions, celery and
carrots in half.
Preheat the
oven to 450 F. Make an herb bouquet by bundling the parsley, bay leaves, garlic
and peppercorns in cheesecloth.
Spread the
bones and half of the onions, celery and carrots in a single layer in a baking
dish. Roast this in the oven, turning and basting several times with the
accumulated fat, until nicely brown. This should take 40 to 50 minutes. At the
end, it should look like this.
Transfer the
bones and vegetables to the stock pot. Add the other vegetables and the herb
bouquet. Drain off the fat from the baking dish and deglaze the pan with about
a cup of water. Add the deglazed liquid to the stock pot. Add water to cover
everything by about an inch. Bring all of this to a boil. Reduce to simmer and
partially cover. The first couple of hours, skim off the scum that forms at the
top. Simmer, simmer, simmer, for at least 12 – 16 hours. Want all the bone
marrow to dissolve. When simmering over night, fully cover and reduce heat to
as low as possible. In the morning, uncover, increase heat, bring to a boil and
then reduce heat to simmer and partially cover until ready for the next step.
When done, using tongs, remove the bones. The bones should look like this.
Strain the
liquid through a colander. The veggies and bouquet should look like this.
Degrease.
(note, the picture above shows some of the beef tallow (beef fat rendered) that
was recovered in the degreasing process. Pour all the beef stock back into the
stock pot. Add the bottle of wine, thyme, maybe some dried parsley, maybe a
couple of more bay leaves to the stock pot.
Now, take
the clarify butter and the flour and make a roux. To do this, blend the flour
and the butter together in a sauce pan, stirring fairly continuously with a
wooden spoon over moderately low heat for 10 to 15 minutes until it is a nice,
even, walnut brown.
At the same
time, cook the mirepoix ingredients. Do this by first heating up a frying pan,
cook the lardons that have been sliced in ¼ inch thick pieces. Here’s a picture
of the roux being cooked while the lardons are also being cooked.
Once the
lardons have been crisped up, the fat should have come out. So, remove the
lardons and cook the mirepoix ingredients in the fat until they are lightly
brown. Here's a picture of the roux being cooked while the mirepoix is being cooked.
Here’s a picture of the mirepoix done and the roux just about done.
When the
roux is ready, let it cool for two minutes and then add six cups of stock,
slowly to it using a wire whip.
Scrape the
mirepoix into the stock pot and deglaze the pan with some stock, adding the
deglazed liquid to the stock pot. Add the roux to the stock pot as well.
Simmer for
another 5 – 6 hours, partially covered. Then taste. Should have about 1 ½ to 2
gallons of stock.
If you like
the taste, strain out all the solids and degrease. Then pour the liquid back into the stock pot and start boiling it down. You want to end up with 2 ½ to 3 cups. Do
this by bringing it to a rolling boil, uncovered, and removing any scum that
forms on the surface. When it is a good, thick liquid, remove from heat.
Degrease
again. Here’s a picture of the final liquid being degreased.
I then pour
this into small muffin tins and freeze. Then, remove from the muffin tins and
store in a ball jar in the freezer. These will keep a long time. When needed
for a sauce, just take one out of the freezer.
