Bordelaise Sauce
Bordelaise sauce is a classic French sauce that hails from the region of Bordeaux in France. The name 'bordelaise' literally means "from Bordeaux". The sauce is known for its rich, wine-forward flavour and is traditionally served with red meat steaks. The classic Bordelaise sauce recipe calls for a reduction of Bordeaux dry red wine and brown veal stock which is flavoured with shallots, thyme and bay leaf. When the reduction reaches the desired consistency, it is then enriched with butter and pieces of beef bone marrow.
Equipment
- 1 Sauce pan
- 1 Fine sieve
Ingredients
- 200 ml Bordeaux red wine
- 300 ml brown veal stock
- 35 grams finely chopped shallot
- 100 grams bone marrow
- 5 grams crushed black pepper
- 1 sprig thyme
- 1 small bay leaf
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- salt and pepper
Instructions
- Start by soaking the bone marrow in slightly salted cold water for at least an hour. This will help draw out the blood and make the bone marrow a cleaner white.
- Put the red wine, shallots and ground black pepper in a sauce pan and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the mixture by around 75% until the mixture starts getting thicker and syrupy. As the volume of liquid in the pot reduces, adjust the heat to prevent the wine from burning.
- Add the brown veal stock, thyme and bay leaf to the pot and keep on reducing gently. If any scum from the stock floats to the top, skim it off with a spoon.
- When the sauce has almost reached the desired consistency, pass it through a fine sieve into a clean sauce pan. If you don't have another saucepan of the correct size, strain the sauce into a clean bowl. Clean the saucepan properly and then transfer the sauce back to it. Using a clean sauce pan is important especially since there might be some burnt sauce on the edges of the pan, which might make the sauce bitter.
- Reduce the sauce until the right consistency is achieved. If the sauce is not thickened enough, add more stock and continue reducing. If the sauce is too thick, add a small amount of stock and stop reducing.
- Strain the bone marrow from the salted water and dry it completely. Cut into small cubes and add it to the sauce. Do not use a whisk to stair the bone marrow in. Instead, while the pot is still on very low heat, move the pot around in a circular motion to let the sauce and the bone marrow combine gently.
- Taste the sauce. If the sauce is too rich, add some lemon juice to balance it out. Season the sauce with salt and pepper as needed.
Notes
You can prepare the sauce in advance if needed, however it's best if you add the bone marrow (or butter) just before serving. This is because if the sauce is cooled and then reheated it might split. So prepare the sauce until it's fully reduced, then store in the fridge. Just before serving, warm it up, add the bone marrow and adjust the seasoning.