beautifulduckweed | On demi-glace

I came home to a warm apartment smelling like chicken stock today. Pretty nice, given how godawful cold Portland is alla sudden. But now my windows are beyond steamed up--they're actually dripping with condensation. Eeek.

And I'm about to make it worse as I make my ersatz demi-glace--ersatz beacuse it doesn't involve having to make sauce espagnole.

So, the basic proportion: 4 parts brown stock to 1 part decent red wine and a couple of thinly-sliced shallots. Do not, for the love all that's holy, use the borderline-undrinkable crap wine, because you're going to concentrate the flavor as you boil this down, and if something tastes like ass to begin with, it's not really going to improve as you reduce it and reduce it and reduce it, as you're doing with demi. In fact, there's a decent chance it's going to end up tasting like concentrated ass.

In a large pot, add the shallots and wine. Reduce at high heat until about half the liquid remains. Add stock, reduce heat, and reduce, reduce, reduce until you have a dark, thick liquid. You don't want it to be sludgy--you want to stop just short of that. And then strain the resulting liquid for as many times as you can stand through a cheescloth-lined sieve. Let cool, slap into some containers or ice-cube trays and freeze the suckers until you need them. Use the demi for gravy, dark sauces, and to add flavor to soups and soupy things; I've used it in the past to add depth and flavor to a whole host of things, from boeuf bourguinon to étoufée to squash soup. Repeat after me, folks: bouillon is for LOZERS and WIMPS. Demi-glace, either the real thing or this fakey-mcfake version I've just explained to you, is the way to go, man.

Edited to add: I was just snuggling with Hitlercat, when I realized her fur smells faintly of chicken stock.

This is very amusing to me.