Red Wine Reduction Sauce

  Posted on October 2, 2009  by Leslie Blythe  2 comments

Sauce Me Up!

My friend, Shannon, wants to know how to make a simple sauce to go with meat.

There are basically 5 “mother” sauces in French cuisine that were catagorized in the late 1800’s by French chef, Auguste Escoffier. He developed a classification system for the “mother” sauces.

With the lack of refrigeration, sauces were often used to cover up the flavor of less-than-perfect meats, poultry and seafood. The five mother sauces include béchamel sauce, veloute sauce, brown or Espagnole sauce, Hollandaise sauce and tomato sauce. These sauces are also collectively referred to in French as “sayces meres” or “grandes sauces.”

Each sauce has a distinct is different: Béchamel sauce is white, veloute sauce is blond, Espagnole sauce is brown, Hollandaise sauce is buttery and tomato sauce is red. One look at a sauce and you should quickly be able to ascertain the mother sauce from which it is derived.

The reason mother sauces have stood the test of time is that they are incredibly versatile and provide the basic foundation on which you can build dozens of other sauces. For example, if you add diced shallots, white wine or vinegar, tarragon and peppercorns to Hollandaise sauce, you have a derivative known as béarnaise sauce.

Below is a basic red wine reduction sauce, that is straight forward and simple.  Try this one out!

Red Wine Reduction Sauce

1 cup red wine
2 Tbs unsalted cold butter, cut into 1/4″ cubes
Salt and pepper to taste

To make the red wine reduction, add the red wine to the skillet used to sear your meat and place over medium heat.

Scrape caramelized bits off of the bottom of the pan using a wooden spoon.

Allow the red wine to reduce to 1/2 cup (half of the original amount) then reduce the heat to low.

Whisk the cubes of cold butter into the skillet a bit at a time. Whisk quickly to allow the butter to blend smoothly with the reduced wine. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Remove the sauce from heat.