Espagnole Sauce

By EdieK

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp butter
• 1/3 cup onion, diced
• 1/3 cup carrot, diced
• 1/3 cup celery, diced
• 3 tbsp flour
• 2 1/2 cups brown stock, cold or at room temperature
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1/4 tsp peppercorns
• 2 parsley stems
• salt and pepper

Details

Servings 2
Adapted from uniongas.com

Preparation

Step 1

Melt butter in medium saucepan. Add onion, carrot and celery and cook, stirring over medium heat until soft. With wooden spoon, stir in flour and cook, stirring until flour is golden brown, about 3-4 minutes. Slowly whisk in stock until smooth, then stir in tomato paste. Add bay leaf, thyme, peppercorns and parsley. Bring to high simmer over medium high heat. Reduce heat to low and gently simmer for 30 minutes, skimming off top as required. Strain through a fine strainer lined with cheesecloth.

This brown sauce needs further seasoning to really shine. It’s best when added to equal parts brown stock and simmered until reduced by half. The resulting sauce is called demi-glace and can be made into a variety of brown sauces, including hunter's sauce (add mushrooms, shallots, white wine, diced tomatoes and parsley) and Marchand de Vin sauce (add red wine reduction and diced shallots). Brown sauces like these are ideal with beef tenderloin.