How to make a brown sauce.

Let's face it. Making a basic brown sauce doesn't really sound all that exciting, does it? It really doesn't have a good name or a good sound to it. It's not romantic, enticing, or salivating. It is however, one of the fundamental sauces you absolutely need to know how to master in order to make all those other extraordinary sauces and meals.

If you can't do a brown sauce, get out of the kitchen.

With that said, making a brown sauce isn't that difficult in terms of ingredients anyway. Traditionally you would need some beef stock, onions and other mirepoix ingredients and flour and oil for your roux. What's really important, as with most sauces is the technique. Certain impatient activities, such as stirring too much, over boiling, not skimming scum etc. can lead to a noticeably poorer quality brown sauce.

To make a litre of brown sauce you will need 1 litre of beef stock, 1 tablespoon of tomato paste, two whole onions, 2 garlic cloves, a bay leaf, 1 medium carrot and 1 celery stalk. 3/4 cup of white flour and 1/2 cup of vegetable oil. Your mirepoix of vegetable should all be diced up ahead of time. If by chance you have any bacon fat left over from breakfast, you can use a couple tablespoons of that as well.

Okay make sure your beef stock is on the stove and already heated. In another sauce pan add your half of your oil and bring to medium high heat. Add all of your diced mirepoix and saute until a nice golden brown, with lots of color but no charring. If the oil all gets absorbed (probably will), then add the rest of it to the pan along with all of the flour.

Keep sautéing over medium high heat, keeping in mins this is going to get a little gummy and sticky now. What you want to do is allow the roux mixture (fat and flour) to cook together and get some brownish coloring to them. This could take anywhere from 6-12 minutes.

When the mixture is smooth and has a nutty smell to it, start adding some of the stock beginning with maybe just a cup of it first. If you have a little leftover red wine, this would be a great spot to add it. Be careful to watch for hot steam coming off the sauce. Whisk in stock until smooth, then add the rest, continuing to stir until well blended. Add a tablespoon of tomato past, blending in until smooth.

Bring the temperature of the stove down to about medium low. What you want to be looking for is a controlled simmer, even a little rumble in the middle of your sauce pot. Don't boil it like it was pasta water. You want it moving from the bottom of the pan to the top, but gently. You'll know you have the right heat when after a minute or so, impurities (that look like suds) will find their way to the edge of the pan. Let them collect there and every couple of minutes gently lift them out with a spoon and discard.

Let cook until the sauce has a smooth consistency to it and shows a sheen on reflection. This could be 15-25 minutes. Season your brown sauce with salt and black pepper. Let cool at room temperature before putting your fridge. If sealed, this sauce can last 2 weeks in your fridge and up to 4 months in your freezer.

In the video below of how to make a brown sauce, I make a decent version of this but really speed things up by using a powdered beef stock because if you are like most people, having beef nones on hand isn't normally something you can rely on.