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It’s DEMI GLACE DAY!
This is my variant on the Adam Ragusea recipe/technique, which is itself a variant on the Chef John technique. Ragusea’s video is very good and he’s probably my favourite foodtuber right now
Of course I deglazed the roasting pan what kind of monster do you think I am
Everything that was in the roasting pan goes into the big pot, where it will sit bubbling away until bedtime, so, uh ... see you then, I guess?
Oh right: BIG POT PIC
WAKE UP ITS DEMI GLACE DAY ... er, Demi Glace Night, I guess. The long simmer is over. The short reduction before it goes in the fridge overnight begins.
What happened to all that other stuff, you ask? It is trash now. It has sacrificed its flavour to The Liquid. RIP tasty meats and vegetables
Ice cubes! This is just to get it cool enough to put in the fridge overnight.
DEMI GLACE “DAY” continues tomorrow morning!
DEMI GLACE “DAY” continues tomorrow morning!
On the second day of Demi GLACE my past self gave to me: a bowl of Meat Jello with a thick layer of fat on top. Yay?
So. The fat is supposed to come away in solid, almost chocolate-like chunks. Instead it was more of a loose jam texture. And if you look at the bowl, you see there’s a “transitional layer” of fat mixed with liquid at the top.
This isn’t a big problem. It just means the liquid was probably too hot when it went in the fridge (sorry, fridge). The solution is to reduce it and cool it a second time so all that leftover fat rises up and hardens like it was supposed to.
Yeah ... looks, uh, meaty
I would have had to do this anyway because I need to skim that protein foam off the top, and filter out all those tiny solid bits. So much of this recipe is about taking unwanted stuff out of the demi glace. The goal is to make pure, concentrated, meaty umami flavour cubes
Here’s what’s happening to all those nasty little meat particles you saw in the jello pic
And once again, I have a bowl of brown liquid that has to go in the fridge for a while. This time I’m adding more ice and giving it more time to cool off on the counter first. I may even put it in the freezer for a bit later today
Day three. All the fat has risen to the surface where it can be easily scraped off! The excitement never stops!
Now the final reduction, then all that’s left is to filter out the last of the solids. Then it cools before I portion and freeze it.
Yesterday we filtered out the larger particles (mostly shredded chicken bits). The last step filters out ... this stuff. It’s mostly protein solids and vegetable fiber, and it’s got the texture of thick pea soup. Almost no flavour.
Demi glace is part of a sauce. It’s not supposed to work as a sauce by itself. All this obsessive filtering is to make it as pure as possible so the only thing it contributes to a sauce is rich, meaty flavour and a bit of thickening from the gelatinized proteins.
If I left the sludge in there, or the fat from yesterday, it would be part of whatever sauce I make with this. The fat would make a sauce very greasy, and the sludge would thicken it in an unpleasant way. Hence all the filtering.
I could keep filtering this and I’d probably extract a tiny bit more crud, but the law of diminishing returns applies. Besides, I’m pretty happy with how clear and consistent this is
Anyway, this is why I have ice cube trays even though my fridge has an ice maker
