Sauces
Demi-glace
The traditional, old-school route to the great brown sauce: roast-bone brown stock, then espagnole (a brown roux simmered with mirepoix, tomato and that stock), then equal parts espagnole and brown stock reduced by half and skimmed until glossy. Few kitchens make it this way now, but it is still worth knowing: it gives sauces body, gloss, a good coating consistency and real depth of flavour. Make a batch, freeze it in cubes, and a spoonful lifts any pan sauce.
- Serves 10
- Makes about 1 litre, plus spare brown stock
- Hands-on about 1½ hours over 2 days
- Freezes for 6 months
- Old-school route
- French
Method
Brown stock, day 1. Heat the oven to 220°C (200°C fan). Toss the bones (3 kg) with the oil (2 tbsp) in your largest roasting tin and roast for 45 minutes, turning once, until deep brown all over. Add the onion (2 onions), carrot (2 carrots) and celery (2), smear the tomato purée (2 tbsp) over the bones and roast for 20 minutes more. Brown, not black: burnt bones make bitter stock.
Lift everything into a large stockpot. Pour off the fat from the tin, add a splash of the water and scrape up every brown bit over a low heat; tip that in too. Add the garlic (4 cloves), bouquet garni (1), peppercorns (1 tsp) and enough cold water (5 litres) to cover by a few centimetres.
Bring slowly to a simmer, skimming off the grey scum as it rises. Keep it at a bare tremble (a bubble or two breaking the surface), never a boil, which makes stock cloudy and greasy. Simmer uncovered for 6–8 hours, topping up with a little cold water if the bones are exposed. Do not salt it: it will be reduced.
Strain through a fine sieve (or one lined with muslin) and cool quickly. Chill overnight and lift off the fat. You should have about 2.5 litres of brown, wobbly stock: 1.5 litres for the espagnole and 1 litre for the demi-glace.
Espagnole, day 2. In a heavy saucepan, fry the bacon (50 g) in the butter (50 g) until the fat runs, then add the onion (1 onion), carrot (1 carrot) and celery (1) and cook for 10 minutes until well browned.
Stir in the flour (50 g) and cook over a low heat, stirring often, for 10–15 minutes to a nut-brown roux that smells like toasted hazelnuts. Take your time: a scorched roux tastes bitter and thickens less.
Off the heat, whisk in the hot brown stock (1.5 litres) a ladle at a time until smooth. Add the tomato purée (2 tbsp), tomatoes (2 tomatoes), mushrooms (50 g) and bouquet garni (1). Bring to the boil, stirring, then turn down to the gentlest simmer.
Simmer for 1½–2 hours with the pan a little off-centre on the burner, so the fat and scum collect at one side; skim them off every 15–20 minutes. Strain, pressing on the vegetables. You should have about 1 litre of smooth espagnole.
Demi-glace. Put the espagnole (1 litres) and the remaining brown stock (1 litres) in a wide, heavy pan. Simmer very gently, skimming often, until reduced by about half, 1–1½ hours. Mark the starting level on a wooden skewer so you can judge it.
It is ready when it coats the back of a spoon and a finger drawn through holds a clean line. Strain through a fine sieve. Stir in the sherry or Madeira (50 ml), if using, and season only now (to taste). Use straight away, or cool and freeze.
Tip: tap a step to tick it off as you cook.
Demi-glace, quick demi-glace or jus lié?
Three brown sauces that recipes often call for. Which one? The classic demi-glace is the traditional, old-school route: few kitchens make it this way now, but it is worth knowing because it gives sauces body, gloss, a good coating consistency and depth of flavour. Make a batch, freeze it in cubes, and a spoonful lifts any pan sauce. For a weeknight, the quick version does the same job in 30 minutes; for a roast, make a jus lié.
| Demi-glace (classic) | Quick Demi-glace | Jus Lié | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Brown stock + espagnole (brown roux, mirepoix, tomato), reduced together by half | Shop-bought stock reduced with shallot, tomato and red wine; gelatine for body | Roast juices and stock, lightly thickened with arrowroot or cornflour |
| Time | 2 days, mostly unattended | About 30 minutes | About 10 minutes |
| Texture | Thick, glossy, coats a spoon; sets to a firm jelly | Glossy, coats a spoon; sets softly | Light, clear and glossy; thinner |
| Today | The traditional, old-school route: kept by a few traditional kitchens. Most restaurants now reduce veal stock instead; most home cooks make pan sauces | The home cook’s short cut to the restaurant-style reduced stock | The everyday kitchen sauce for roasts and sautés |
| Use it for | Bordelaise, Madeira, Robert and other classic brown sauces; a batch in the freezer. Worth knowing: it gives body, gloss, a good consistency and depth | Steak and pan sauces, Diane, peppercorn sauce; any recipe that asks for demi-glace | Roast meat and poultry, chasseur, a “cordon of jus”; any recipe that asks for jus lié |
| Tip | Freeze in ice-cube trays: a spoonful lifts any pan sauce | Freeze in cubes too; check the salt | Make it in the roasting tin while the meat rests |
See also
- Quick Demi-glace — the 30-minute home version
- Jus Lié — thickened roast juices
- Espagnole — the brown sauce on its own
- Sauce Robert
- Piquant Sauce
- Charcutière Sauce
- Peppercorn Sauce
- Goujon of Chicken Diane
Chef’s notes
- The modern restaurant route: most restaurant kitchens now skip the flour-thickened espagnole. They roast veal bones, make a strong stock and simply reduce it (often with a little wine and tomato) until its own gelatine makes it glossy and sticky. It is cleaner-tasting and lighter, but needs a lot of bones for a little sauce. Our Quick Demi-glace is the home short cut to the same idea.
- Freeze it in cubes: pour the cooled demi-glace into an ice-cube tray, freeze, then bag the cubes. A cube or a spoonful lifts any pan sauce, gravy or stew. It keeps for 5 days in the fridge or 6 months in the freezer.
- Equal parts, reduced by half is the classroom rule. Escoffier himself reduced a quart each of espagnole and brown stock to nine-tenths of a quart and finished it with sherry, so do not worry if yours stops a little short of half: judge by the spoon.
- No veal bones? Beef bones work; add 2 split pig’s trotters or 500 g chicken wings to the stock for extra gelatine. A pressure cooker cuts the stock to about 2 hours.
- Daughter sauces from demi-glace: shallots and red wine reduced, then demi-glace, for bordelaise; Madeira for Madeira sauce; mushrooms, white wine and tomato for chasseur; onion, white wine, vinegar and mustard for Robert; vinegar, shallot, gherkins and capers for piquant.
From Carême to the freezer
Demi-glace (French for “half glaze”) sits halfway between a sauce and a glace de viande, the stock boiled down until it is thick and sticky. It belongs to the family of espagnole, the great brown sauce of classical French cooking.
Antonin Carême classified sauces into grandes and petites sauces in L’Art de la cuisine française au XIXe siècle (from 1833), naming four great sauces: espagnole, velouté, allemande and béchamel. The others were made from them.
Auguste Escoffier kept espagnole among the basic sauces in Le Guide Culinaire (1903). In the 1907 English translation, A Guide to Modern Cookery, Half Glaze (No. 23) comes straight after Brown Sauce or Espagnole (No. 22): a quart of espagnole and a quart of first-class brown stock reduced to nine-tenths of a quart, finished away from the heat with sherry, and “the base of all the smaller brown sauces.” He also wrote that a roux made from pure starch such as arrowroot would one day replace flour and give a clearer espagnole in an hour.
In Britain the brigade method reached generations of catering students through Victor Ceserani and Ronald Kinton’s college textbook Practical Cookery (Edward Arnold, first published 1962). Our own old college recipe cards come from that tradition: Brown Sauce (No. 3) is the college espagnole, and Sauce Robert, Piquant Sauce and Charcutière Sauce all call for “demi-glace/jus lie”.
Few kitchens make it this way today. Most restaurants reduce veal stock without a roux, and most home cooks make a quick pan sauce. But the old method is still worth knowing, because it explains how a sauce gets its body, gloss and depth.
How this recipe was developed
We compared the classic three-stage method in Escoffier’s Guide to Modern Cookery and Anne Willan’s La Varenne Pratique with today’s restaurant-style reduced stocks from Fallow (Jack Croft and Will Murray), Gordon Ramsay and Heston Blumenthal, and the best-rated web versions.
- Equal parts, reduced by half. Anne Willan’s La Varenne Pratique (as adapted by Whisk) and Simply Recipes reduce equal parts espagnole and brown stock by half; Escoffier reduces to nine-tenths and adds sherry.
- A nut-brown roux, cooked slowly. Escoffier warns that a scorched roux is bitter and thickens less; La Varenne browns the flour with bacon, onion and carrot, as we do.
- Roast the bones hard, but not black. Allrecipes (4.8/5) and Food Network’s Robert Irvine roast veal bones at about 230°C for up to 75 minutes before simmering.
- The modern route. Fallow’s red wine sauce contains their demi-glace: browned beef trim and bones simmered with stock, strained and reduced by about three-quarters, no roux. Gordon Ramsay’s red wine sauce for Beef Wellington works the same way.
- Freeze in cubes. Fallow and America’s Test Kitchen both freeze reduced sauce in ice-cube trays.
Sources we compared (opened 1 November 2026):
- Anne Willan, La Varenne Pratique: Espagnole and Demi-glace, as adapted by Whisk (2008)
- Fallow (Jack Croft & Will Murray): Red Wine Sauce, which contains their demi-glace
- Gordon Ramsay: Beef Wellington with red wine sauce
- Heston Blumenthal: Brown chicken stock (SBS Food)
- Allrecipes: Demi-Glace (4.8/5, 9 ratings)
- Simply Recipes (Sally Vargas): Classic Demi-Glace Sauce
- Food Network (Robert Irvine): Demi-Glace
- Saveur: Homemade Demi-Glace
Also consulted: Marcella Hazan and Rick Stein (we found no demi-glace or jus lié recipe of theirs to compare) and Christopher Kimball, whose America’s Test Kitchen versions are credited above.
This is an original Cookeryonline recipe written in our own words. Ingredient choices and techniques are credited above; no source text has been copied.
Sources for the history
- A. Escoffier, A Guide to Modern Cookery (1907), Project Gutenberg No. 71395: Nos. 7 Brown stock, 9 Brown veal stock, 19 Brown roux, 22 Espagnole, 23 Half glaze, 32 Bordelaise, 41 Thickened gravy
- Wikipedia: Mother sauce (Carême 1833, Escoffier 1903 and the 1907 English edition)
- Wikipedia: Demi-glace (Julia Child’s “semi-demi-glace”)
- Wikipedia: Le guide culinaire (1903)
- Ceserani & Kinton, Practical Cookery, 4th ed. (1974), Internet Archive (lending library)
- Open British National Bibliography: Practical cookery, Edward Arnold, 1962