Sauce Bordelaise

Bordelaise is one of the great French steak sauces and it is far less fiddly than its reputation suggests. The technique is the whole thing: a hard shallot and wine reduction, then a good stock, then butter off the heat. Bone marrow is traditional and worth doing at least once, since it gives a silkiness nothing else quite matches, but the sauce is still very good without it.

Ingredients

Makes about 250ml, enough for four steaks

• 1 marrow bone, cut into rounds, about 60g of marrow optional. Any butcher will cut them for you, usually for very little
• 20g (¾oz) butter, plus 40g (1½oz) cold butter to finish
• 3 banana shallots, very finely chopped about 120g
• 1 tsp black peppercorns, cracked
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 sprigs thyme
• 400ml (14fl oz) dry red wine a Bordeaux or another Cabernet or Merlot blend
• 400ml (14fl oz) brown veal or beef stock the richer and more gelatinous the better
• 1 tsp red wine vinegar
• salt

Kit

• Small heavy saucepan
• Small pan for the marrow
• Fine sieve
• Whisk

Method

1. If you are using marrow, push it out of the bones and soak it in cold salted water for an hour, changing the water once. Cut it into rough 1cm dice and set aside in the fridge.

2. Melt the 20g of butter in a small heavy saucepan over a medium low heat. Add the shallots with a pinch of salt and sweat them for eight minutes until completely soft and translucent. They must not colour, so drop the heat if they start to catch.

3. Add the cracked peppercorns, bay and thyme and stir for thirty seconds until fragrant.

4. Pour in the wine, raise the heat and boil hard for twelve to fifteen minutes until only about four tablespoons of syrupy liquid remain and the shallots are sitting in a dark glaze. This step is not optional and cannot be shortened. Underreduced wine is what makes a bad bordelaise taste harsh.

5. Add the stock and bring back to a simmer. Cook uncovered for fifteen to twenty minutes until reduced by roughly half and the sauce coats the back of a spoon and holds a clean line when you draw a finger through it.

6. Strain through a fine sieve into a clean pan, pressing the shallots firmly to get everything out of them, then discard the solids. Add the vinegar and taste for salt.

7. Poach the marrow dice in a small pan of barely simmering salted water for two minutes until they turn translucent and just soft. Lift them out with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper.

8. Bring the sauce back to a bare simmer, take it off the heat and whisk in the cold butter a cube at a time until glossy. Fold in the marrow, check the seasoning and serve straight away over rested steak. Do not reboil once the butter is in.

Tips worth knowing

• Stock quality is the ceiling on this sauce. A gelatinous homemade brown stock gives body that no amount of reduction will get out of a cube. If you are using a cube, add a teaspoon of powdered gelatine to the stock to make up some of the difference.
• Crack the peppercorns rather than grinding them. Ground pepper simmered for twenty minutes turns dusty and slightly bitter, and you cannot strain it out.
• Marrow bones are cheap and freeze well. Ask for the wide central pieces rather than the knuckle ends, which have very little marrow in them.
• For a non-alcoholic version, use 400ml of red grape juice with 2 tbsp of red wine vinegar and reduce the same way. It will be sweeter, so hold back on any extra vinegar at the end until you have tasted it.

Keeping and reheating

The strained sauce base keeps five days in the fridge and freezes for three months. Freeze it before adding the butter and marrow, then reheat, and finish with fresh butter each time.

Questions people ask