[Basic] Sauce Espagnole (Brown Sauce)

Sauce Espagnole(brown sauce) is one of the five French mother sauces, and probably the hardest one to make - Not because it requires a lot of technique, but because the sauce is made of veal stock, which takes more than 10 hours to prepare.

The reason we call sauce Espagnole, a "mother sauce" is that many French sauces are based on this sauce. Sauce Espagnole is tasteful as itself, but you can also make other derivative sauces, such as sauce Bordelaise (red wine sauce), sauce Robert (brown mustard sauce) or sauce Chasseur (mushroom sauce).

Since I made brown veal stock a few days ago, it is perfect time to make sauce Espagnole.

[Basic] Sauce Espagnole (Brown Sauce)
(Yield: 2/3 pint / Cooking time: 1.5 hours)
modified from French Culinary Institute 2009 Level 1 recipe

Ingredients:

+ 1.5 pint brown veal stock (to see veal stock recipe, please click here.) + 10g all-purpose flour + 10g butter + 20g bacon + 40g carrots, chopped

+ 40g onions, chopped + 60g tomatoes, chopped + 12g tomato paste + 1 small clove of garlic, crushed + 1/2 a small sprig tarragon + salt

Procedures:
1. Cook bacon over low heat to render the fat until lightly browned. Cook carrots and onions with rendered bacon fat until the vegetables are browned.


2. Stir butter into the browned vegetable & bacon, and sprinkle flour. Over low-medium heat, stir the vegetables and flour until the flour is browned.


3. Turn off the heat and cook tomato paste with the residual heat on the pan.


4. Pour brown veal stock and stir well with a small sauce whisk to avoid any lumps of flour.


5. Bring to a simmer and add garlic and tarragon. Simmer the sauce for 45-60 minutes until the liquid is reduced to about 2/3 pint. Skim off any floating impurity and fat often.


6. Strain the sauce and adjust the seasoning with salt. If you don't use it immediately, cool it down and refrigerate. (If you are going to make other derivative sauces with the sauce Espagnole, season lightly. While reducing the sauce to make another sauce, the sauce can be too salty.)