Red Wine Sauce

Been rather busy this month with little opportunity to cook at home. My second post this month/year is a sauce recipe. This is a great sauce to go with your meats for your home cooked meals. It can keep a while in a fridge too. It does require some time but its rather simple to do. 

Beef Tenderloin with Mash and Red Wine Sauce

Makes about 2-3 cups of sauce.

Ingredients:
1 cup diced carrots
1 cup diced onions
1 cup diced celery
2 sprigs of fresh thyme

2 sprigs of fresh Italian parsely
1 litre beef stock (Store bought is fine)
1 1/2 cups dry red wine
1 cup port
2 tablespoons tomato paste

1/2 teaspoon of black peppercorns

Butter/cooking oil for frying

Salt to taste

Ingredients for the Roux
1.5 tablespoon plain flour

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Steps:

1. In a large saucepan, heat cooking oil/butter over medium heat. When oil/butter is hot enough, add the carrots, onions and celery. Fry until the vegetables start to soften and the onions start to become translucent, about 3-5 minutes. then add in the tomato paste and fry for another 3-5 minutes, mixing well. (This is to remove the tartness from the tomato paste)

2. At this point, add the wine and port. Mix well and allow to simmer over low heat until the liquid is reduced by about a third.

3. Then add the stock, thyme, peppercorns and parsley. Mix well and allow to simmer very gently over low heat for about 30 - 45 minutes. Then strain and discard the solids. Then allow the liquid to simmer over medium for about 45 minutes. until reduced by half.

(Note: the further you reduce, the more intense the flavour will be and you will get a fuller texture but do note, if you use store bought stock, there is most probably salt in it, so taste as you reduce.)

4. During the reduction, you can start with the roux. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat, when its fully melted and starts to froth, add in the flour and stir well. with a wooden spoon or whisk, keep stirring gently. You should get a thick paste. When the raw taste of the flour is cooked out, you have what is call white roux. We want a brown roux for this sauce so you want to cook it further, stirring frequently until the paste becomes brown with a nutty flavour.

5. Add the roux to the pot of reducing sauce and mix well. Allow to simmer for another 5 minutes and it should be ready to serve. Season with salt to taste, although I am of the opinion that salt is not required if the store bought stock has salt in it.

Goes great with beef and pork. Especially if you are serving roast beef.