Real Demi-Glace in a Jar
Taken from Molly Stevens' Review of Demi-Glace Gold in the April/May 1995 Issue.
"It's always the same dilemma. You know that rich, concentrated homemade veal demi-glace will produce fabulous sauces, soups, and braises, but who has the time to shop, chop, simmer, skim, strain, and reduce? Yet the alternatives to homemade are never up to snuff. Happily, there's a new product that resolves the dilemma deliciously.
Demi-Glace Gold has all the elements of the labor-intensive original
and contains no preservatives or artificial ingredients. It
is quite simply brown veal stock, with a little flour as a
binder; reduced to a gelatinous, firm consistency. It has
a low moisture content and high acidity (from tomato and red
wine), so unopened; it has an 18 month unrefrigerated shelf
life. The product can be used in three forms-
concentrated
as a meat glaze (glace de viande), reconstituted to make a
rich sauce base, or diluted to use as a stock.
When I opened the jar, the deep, rich aroma and silky, sticky texture announced that Demi-Glace Gold was in a league above any existing ready-made sauce base. So rather that compare it to other instant sauce bases, I decided to compare it to a homemade demi-glace. To use Demi-Glace Gold, add water and simmer while whisking for about six minutes. The recommended water to product ratio is 4:1, which I found to be too concentrated. A 5:1 ratio produce a more balanced sauce base with a bright shine and silky texture that wasn't excessively thick after simmering. It was, in fact, smoother and clearer that homemade (even after straining the homemade through a very fine sieve). Its syrupy consistency and mahogany color were flawless, and it delivered a deep rich meaty flavor.
My
only complaint was that several of the "chef-tasters" I enlisted
detected a slightly flat, over-reduced flavor typical of some
bases. But the stuff isn't really meant to be alone as a sauce,
so I don't consider this to be a problem. The slight flatness
was easily masked by pairing the sauce base with assertive
seasonings such as wine reductions, acid ingredients, or vivid
spices. A colleague worded wonders with a fruity, heady red
wine and port reduction.
I decided to test Demi-Glace Gold on some classic French sauce. A sauce Robert using a good dose of Dijon mustard was delicious, as was a wild mushroom sauce and a simple but spicy sauce au poivre with lots of cracked black pepper. I also had fantastic success using the diluted product for deglazing when making a quick pan sauce and as a braising liquid to create deeper flavors. Demi- Glace Gold can also be used to enrich the flavor of grain, rice, barley, kasha - by adding a teaspoon per cup of grain to the water during cooking. The real beauty of this product is the fact that it isn't just for classic sauce making. I enjoyed it the most when I used it for dishes like an impromptu pan sauce or a rice pilaf, everyday dishes that I'd never bother to make veal stock for, but that taste so much better with it."
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