FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Wine Cookery

When I first witnessed a wine-based sauce being made entirely from scratch I was amazed. If I recall correctly it was Demi-Glace au Vin Rouge. The chef began using the traditional base of Espagnole sauce, and though we only needed enough for about a dozen customers, he proceeded with two bottles of wine and a half-gallon of veal stock. Thinking that he was making an incredibly large amount of sauce for twelve people and being too intimidated to question his judgment, I watched in silence. At the time I knew nothing of the fine art of reduction.

Throughout the course of the day the wine simmered slowly in one pot and the stock and Espagnole sauce simmered in another, until a mere one-fifth of the original amounts remained. As the liquids evaporated, the chef tended to them as if he were nurturing a child. "The sauce," he said "makes itself, you simply guide it along." He then combined the two liquids in a clean pot and continued to "guide" the sauce for another hour or so. He also told us that a superb sauce simply could not be rushed, and that patience was of utmost importance.

In a divine moment of clarity it all began to make sense to me. By reducing the liquids separately the flavors became extremely concentrated -- the water content decreases through evaporation and any existing flavors grow stronger. In the case of a meat-based stock, such as veal, as it reduces, or evaporates, the remaining liqiud becomes somewhat viscous, almost syrupy. With wine, not only do the flavors become concentrated, but the harshness of the alcohol is dissipated as well.

A few years ago while studying with the famed author and culinary educator Madeleine Kammen, she showed the class how to make an essence of guinea hen. While doing this she instructed us to take a sip of wine and then a sip of the sauce that was cooking; after which, we took another sip of the wine. The change in the flavor of the wine after tasting the sauce was remarkable; it seemed much easier to balance the flavors of the sauce. When we seemed astonished by this, Ms. Kamman remarked to the class that the winemaker puts so much of their life into his or her wine that we should give the sauce, in which we use their wine, at least an equal amount of respect and attention. Somewhat stunned by many "sips" of wine, we all concurred. Winemaking dates back more than 5000 years, its relationship with food and cooking -- particularly sauce making -- is only natural.

Not all wine-based sauces need an entire day for production, such as one of the more recent newcomers to the sauce category, beurre blanc (white butter). Though the fundamentals for this sauce have been around for quite some time, beurre blanc was relatively unknown outside the Loire Valley region of France before the early 1960's. When the flourless sauces of cuisine nouveau were all the rage, beurre blanc took Paris, and the rest of the world for that matter, by storm. This sauce is said to have evolved from a method that is often used in rural France when poaching fish, a pat or two of butter is swirled into the poaching liquid towards the end of the cooking process to form a crude sauce. This method was later adapted and refined by chefs and is still the norm in restaurants today. There are, though, two schools of thought on this classic sauce: with cream, or without. While adding cream to beurre blanc will stabilize it to a certain extent, I personally prefer the creamless method; each flavor in the sauce seems to be more distinct. The method for making beurre blanc is about as simple as sauce making can get. White wine and/or vinegar are simmered with minced shallots and freshly cracked white pepper, and then pats of chilled butter are swirled into the scant liquid directly before service. Though there has always been somewhat of a mystique surrounding this sauce, it's not as difficult to produce or as fragile as its reputation makes it out to be. The most important and basic rule to remember when making beurre blanc is this: after whisking in the butter do not boil the sauce. Unless you've tasted this sauce made properly, the resulting silkiness and simplicity of this classic is indescribable. It is sauces like this that enforce my theory -- sauce making is nothing short of alchemy.