Red wine sauce

DrygastDrygast, 2023-12-25

A tasty and classic-ish sauce

 

  • Servings4 Portions
  • AllergensMilk

 

  • Cook Time45 min

A fairly classic recipe for red wine sauce that goes well with beef filleté, lamb and the like.

Yes I know - I have sugar in the sauce and some people think it's a disaster. I think it works fine so I will ignore that point of view here.

For this particular sauce, I usually use Periquita Reserva, which is a wine I generally like and which I also think works well to buy in a box.

Exactly how much or how little to reduce is up to you. I'm quite happy to reduce a lot so the sauce you get is pretty concentrated. What to think about in that case is not to use very much (or none at all) salt when tasting (adjust the amount of cornstarch then as well). You can always add more salt and stock, but it is impossible to remove it. It is not a bad idea to taste the sauce at regular intervals throughout the reduction process so you know where it is going. However, wait with seasoning until the sauce has completely reduced, otherwise you may get strange results.

Another thing that is argued about is whether to use calf stock or ox stock. Some also advocate making your own stock. I have tried the 3 variants and think they are all equally good. One thing that I usually do, however, is to add any steak sauce if you have cooked any red meat that the sauce is supposed to be served with - this also applies to the liquid from the bag if you cook the meat sous vide.

You can replace veal stock with bouillon cubes. In general, one bouillon cube is calculated to correspond to 1.5 tablespoons of stock, so this means that you would then need 2 bouillon cubes for this recipe.

Ingredients

Sauce

Nutrition Facts*

 TotalServing100 g
Energy464.03 kcal116.01 kcal69 kcal
Carbohydrates22.13 g5.53 g3.29 g
Fat21.79 g5.45 g3.24 g
Protein3.09 g0.77 g0.46 g
Sugar15.27 g3.82 g2.27 g
Salt7.67 g1.92 g1.14 g

* The nutritional information provided is approximate and is calculated using the ingredients available in the database. Info will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.

Directions

Sauce
  1. Peel and dice onion, carrot and celery into small pieces.
  2. In a saucepan - fry the onion, carrot and celery in half (a tablespoon) of butter until the onion is soft without colouring.
  3. Add the tomato paste, sugar and dried thyme and fry for another minute.
  4. Add wine and water, boil and reduce for approx. 20-30 minutes. (Of course, the time depends on how hard you cook the sauce)
  5. Add stock and cornstarch (mix any cornstarch with a little water first to avoid lumps).
  6. Boil until the sauce thickens. If it gets too thick - add more water. If it's still too loose, try reducing more and/or adding more cornstarch.
  7. Strain the sauce and pour back into the saucepan.
  8. Bring to a boil one last time and add the remaining butter (a tablespoon).
  9. Taste with salt, pepper and possibly a little more sugar.