Hayashi Demi-Glace Sauce

Hayashi rice is the quieter sibling of Japanese curry: thinner, glossier, more sour, and built on tomato and red wine rather than spice. It belongs to yoshoku, the Japanese tradition of European dishes adapted for Japanese tastes, and it tastes exactly like that description sounds. This is a simplified demi-glace, deep and dark without the three days a classical one takes.

Ingredients

Makes about 600ml, enough for four plates

• 30g (1oz) butter
• 1 tbsp rapeseed oil
• 2 onions, sliced into thin half moons
• 200g (7oz) chestnut mushrooms, sliced
• 25g (1oz) plain flour
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 200ml (7fl oz) dry red wine
• 600ml (1 pint) hot beef stock the best you have
• 2 tbsp tomato ketchup genuinely part of the dish, not a shortcut
• 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tsp caster sugar or to taste
• salt and black pepper

Kit

• Wide heavy pan
• Wooden spoon
• Whisk

Method

1. Melt the butter with the oil in a wide heavy pan over a medium heat. Add the onions and cook for fifteen minutes, stirring now and then, until they are properly soft and starting to take colour at the edges.

2. Turn the heat up, add the mushrooms and cook for six or seven minutes. Wait for the water they throw out to boil away and the pan to start sizzling again, which is when the mushrooms actually start browning.

3. Scatter the flour over and stir it through. Cook for two minutes so it loses its raw edge, then stir in the tomato puree and cook for another two minutes until it darkens from bright red to brick.

4. Pour in the red wine and scrape the base hard with a wooden spoon. Let it bubble for four or five minutes until it has reduced by about half and no longer smells sharp.

5. Add the hot stock in three goes, whisking each in smoothly. Drop in the bay leaf, bring to a bare simmer and cook uncovered for twenty five minutes, stirring occasionally. It should reduce by roughly a quarter and darken considerably.

6. Stir in the ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce and simmer for a final five minutes. The sauce should be glossy and just thick enough to coat a spoon without being claggy.

7. Fish out the bay leaf. Taste and balance with the sugar, salt and plenty of black pepper. It wants to land somewhere between savoury and gently sour, with the tomato clearly there but not dominant. Serve over rice with thin slices of beef, or use it as a sauce for hamburg steak.

Tips worth knowing

• The ketchup is not a cheat. Japanese yoshoku cooking uses it as a seasoning in its own right, and the sauce tastes flat and unfamiliar without it.
• Add a tablespoon of red wine vinegar at the end if it tastes too round. Hayashi sauce should have a definite tang.
• For a non-alcoholic version, replace the wine with 200ml of red grape juice plus 1 tbsp of red wine vinegar and reduce it the same way.
• Cook the mushrooms in two batches if your pan is small. Crowded mushrooms steam rather than brown and the sauce loses a lot of depth.

Keeping and reheating

Fridge for four days, freezer for three months. It thickens as it chills. Reheat over a low heat with a splash of stock and stir it back to a gloss.

Questions people ask