Déglacé, Déglacer, Déglacez – Deglaze, Deglazing; Réduction – Reduction and Jus Corsé in French Cuisine.

from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

 

 
 
Checking the wine to be used in the sauce!
 
Sauces
Déglacé, Réduction and Jus Corsé 

The sauces in this post may be served with an entrée (the French first course), a plat principal (the main course), or a dessert. The names above do not refer to the ingredients, rather the method of preparation. Be aware that many French menus often contain words from the kitchen that often do not appear in travelers' French-English dictionaries.  

Translating words from French menus to English.

Some words may confuse English speakers when encountered for the first time on a French menu. That was particularly true for those who, like me, tried to translate menu listings using English words that sounded similar. Most of these words came in English from the French when William the Conqueror and his barons brought the cooks with them to England in 1066.  Since 1066 a great deal of time has passed and while the words owe their origins to French their English meanings will have changed.

Three of those words used for sauce have precise meanings, but without an explanation, they may confuse a diner. Some 30% of the English language has French roots, but we are confused when faced with a seemingly irrational change in usage. Nevertheless, don’t blame the French. It’s the British who changed the meanings or didn’t keep up with changes in French cuisine.

Déglacé, Jus and Réduction on a French menu listing.

Menu dishes will often note that a sauce has been "deglazed" and or "reduced" or made with "Jus."  However, their direct translation does not tell us, the average diner, very much. Cooks, both amateur and professional, know the meanings very well, The English word juice also came from old French jus, and so jus on a menu may have many other meanings, including fruit juice and vegetable juices.

  


Preparing a reduction with shallots
Photograph courtesy of Jon-Eric Melsæter
www.flickr.com/photos/jonmelsa/10583856636/ 

Déglace - To deglaze.

Many sauces begin with the natural juices from cooked dishes, include bones, from meats, poultry, fish, and possibly just fruits and vegetables. The untouched sauce from cooking will be called a jus, a suc, or a jus corsé. Then, when an additional flavor is added, the sauce will appear on the menu with a description of how it was flavored, and the menu listing will note déglace. The deglazing will bring all the flavors from the original juices, including those tasty bits that may have been stuck to the base of the pan. 

Déglacé on French menus:

 

Le Filet de Loup de Mer, Braisé, Déglacé de Vin Blanc – A braised filet of European Sea Bass served with a deglazed sauce; the sauce has been made with the fish’s cooking juices flavored with the addition of white wine. A great deal of thought will have gone into choosing the right wine for this fish to create the matching taste. Ask the waiter for more information on the wine used.

 

 N.B. The European Sea Bass is mostly on French menus as Bar apart from parts of the south where it is called Loup. When the European Sea Bass is using the name Loup de Mer, which is the Atlantic wolfish, also called the Atlantic catfish, check carefully what is being offered. The Atlantic Wolfish is a very different fish to the sea bass and can reach twelve kilos (26 lbs) or more. When caught, the Atlantic catfish may end up baked and served as filets; nevertheless, if you have a choice go with the European Sea Bass.

 


Deglazing.
Photograph courtesy of Cheryl DeWolfe
www.flickr.com/photos/dinnerseries/15789710686/

  

Poêlée de Saint-Jacques en Persillade Déglacer Vinaigre de Xéres – The cooking juices of lightly fried King scallops prepared with chopped parsley and garlic  flavored with sherry vinegar.

 

You may be surprised to see PortMadeira, Sherry, and other imported wines on French menus, but they have been recognized for their significant influence on French cuisine for over 200-years.

  

Supreme de Caille Déglacer au Vieux Banyuls - Breast of quail served with its natural cooking juices flavored with an aged Banyuls AOP wine. Banyuls AOP famous for its famous sweet wines, mostly reds, from the town of Banyuls sur Mer on France’s Mediterranean coast 25 km (16 miles) from the Spanish border. Banyuls will only occasionally be on the wine list, but they will be in most restaurants’ kitchens and used for a wide variety of sauces. In restaurants where Banyuls is on the wine list, it may accompany a cheese course or be offered as a dessert wine; that is an opportunity to try a Banyuls instead of a glass of port with which it has much in common. The European quail is a smaller cousin of the North-American quail, and the one on this menu is farm-raised.

 

Banyuls-sur-Mer

Photograph courtesy of Jorge Franganillo

www.flickr.com/photos/franganillo/20603924884/

 

Magret de Canard Déglacé au Vinaigre de Framboise -  Duck breast prepared and served with a  sauce deglazed with raspberry vinegar. Duck nearly always works well when cooked with a fruit sauce and only rarely will that be a sweet fruit; here raspberry vinegar takes away the fruit’s natural sweetness.


Raspberry Vinegar
Photograph courtesy of Rhian
www.flickr.com/photos/rhian/2138548884/

Why the act of changing a flavor is also called deglazing in English, I do not know; however, in the French kitchen, tradition is tradition, and so it is déglacé. The addition of wine or another liquid to deglaze a sauce increases the volume, and that brings in the next part of this post, the réduction.

The Réduction - The Reduction

After creating a new sauce with a combination of the natural cooking juices and an added flavor, the chef may need to reduce the volume of the new sauce and thicken it to concentrate the flavor; that is the reduction.

In modern French cuisine, no chef will thicken a sauce by adding flour. Adding flour may be quick and easy, but flour or cornflour changes the taste of a sauce and does not concentrate the flavor. The thickening, the reduction, will be done by allowing the sauce to reach a low boil and evaporate on the stove.

Menu listings often appear on a menu using the words déglacé and or réduction in the title. Sometimes the usage of these two words becomes muddled; however, as long as we know the meaning, no harm is done.

For most of us, the final taste is more important than the technical names used. Most menus will note the wine, liquor, eau de vie, herbs, or fruits used to change the taste. They will have changed and concentrated the flavor of the original cooking juices, and a deglazed sauce has been created.

The final taste of the sauce is apparent when the sauce has been thickened, reduced in quantity, and the taste concentrated.  


Fennel Crusted Lamb Sirloin, Farm Fresh Grilled Summer 
Vegetable Ratatouille Crispy Parsnips, and a Bordelaise Reduction Sauce
Photograph courtesy of Didriks
www.flickr.com/photos/dinnerseries/5062734490/

The French diner is used to menu listings including the names of the herbs used, the method of cooking, and sometimes the name of the kitchen equipment used. In many cases, for the local diners who already know the high standards of a particular product, even the name of the farm where the chickenspigeonsoysters, or lambs were grown may be included in a listing.

Réduction on French menus: 

Le Filet de Lieu Noir Rôti et sa Réduction de Crème de Morilles – A filet of saithe, pollack in the USA. The fish will be roasted and served with a reduced and creamy sauce flavored with morel mushrooms. (The fish is also called Merluche in France).


Brussel sprouts drizzled with a balsamic reduction
before roasting.
Photograph courtesy of Robert Couse-Baker
www.flickr.com/photos/29233640@N07/49802274571/

  

Onglet de Bœuf de Salers, Réduction de Bière à la Cerise - A hangar or skirt steak from the much-appreciated Salers beef. The steak will have been grilled and served with the reduced sauce made with a cherry-flavored beer. The cows from the Salers cattle produce the milk for the Salers AOP and Cantal AOP cheeses, and so most of these steaks will have come from the bulls. The beer used here is likely to be the Belgian Kriek cherry-flavored beer. The Belgians have hundreds of beers, more than France has cheeses, and their Kriek beer is very popular. Though not the case here, the cut called an onglet, the hanger or skirt steak, is the cut most often seen behind France’s excellent but relatively inexpensive steak frites.

 

 


Thyme flavored Duck Breast with a Red Wine Reduction
Photograph courtesy of Mike Fleming
www.flickr.com/photos/flem007_uk/3562993273/

 

Pavé de Filet de Bœuf à la Réduction de Marcillac et Échalotes  - A large cut from a beef fillet served with a reduced sauce made from the red Marcillac wine (from the department of Aveyron in south-western France) and shallots. (For ordering a steak cooked the way you prefer, click here). 

 

Carpaccio de Saumon, Réduction de Balsamique et Baies Rouges  A Carpaccio of salmon served with a sauce made from reduced Balsamic Vinegar and berries.

On a dessert menu, sauces served with fruits and pastries may also have been flavored; on a menu listing, that flavoring may also be noted as a reduction.

Reduced sauces on French dessert menus:

  

Ananas Rôti aux Épices Réduction de Jus d'Orange – Pineapples roasted with spices and served with a reduced orange sauce.

 

Tarte aux Pommes avec Reduction de Cidre et au Grand Marnier – An apple tart served with a reduction of cider and Grand Marnier. N.B. Grand Marnier is a liquor, a blend of cognac and bitter oranges. Despite being created in the 1880s, Grand Marnier remains one of France’s most famous and best-selling liquors. The inventor, Louis-Alexandre Marnier-Lapostolle, was not a shy man and gave his invention his name, to which he added the title Grand to increase its importance.

 

About 20 years before the creation of Grand Marnier, a wine merchant and businessman from the Norman Atlantic town of Fecamp calling himself Alexandre Le Grand, Alexander the Great in English claimed to have discovered an old Benedictine recipe. In his family’s library, he found a 16th-century Bénédictine manuscript with the recipe for the original orange liqueur made in the original Bénédictine monastery in the town. The liqueur recreated from the recipe is the sweet, orange, and honey flavored, 40% proof, a liqueur called Benedictine D.O.M.  Benedictine D.O.M is also in many French kitchens and often on the list of digestifs offered at the end of the meal.


A bottle of Bénédictine D.O.M.
Photograph courtesy of Bacardi-Martini

Sauces made directly from a Jus Corsé,
the natural cooking juices.

When a sauce is made from the natural cooking juices alone (water may be added), that sauce is called a jus, a suc, a jus de cuisson or a jus course.

Originally a jus corsé was a sauce or gravy based only on veal or beef stock along with the marrow from the bones; apart from water, not even wine was added. Today jus and jus corsé have moved on; your menu may offer a jus corsé for fish, seafood and vegetables that may be slightly flavored with small additions of herbs, spices, fruits, vinegar or wine.

Jus Corsé on French Menus:

  

Fillet de Boeuf Jus Corsé, Gratin de Macaronis – A beef fillet served in its natural cooking juices and accompanied by macaroni browned in the oven with added cheese, usually Parmesan or Gruyere.

   

 

Guinea Hen with Irish Oat Risotto, Figs,

and a Port-Black Pepper Reduction

Photograph courtesy of Chris Chen 陳依勤

www.flickr.com/photos/cchen/52629630/

 

 

Langoustines Roties au Jus Corse – Langoustine, the Dublin Bay Prawn, Scampi, the Norwegian lobster served in its natural cooking juices. Despite the traditional English names, the langoustine is neither a prawn nor a shrimp; nor are practically any of them caught near Dublin. Do not confuse langoustine with the langouste; the langouste is the spiny lobster and owner of the much larger lobster tail. Dublin Bay prawns grow up to 20 cm, but most of those seen in restaurants are rarely longer than 15 cm. Dublin Bay prawns look like tiny two-clawed lobsters, but they are a very, very, very distant member of that lobster family.   

 


Langoustine – A Dublin Bay prawn
There is no meat in the head of a Dublin Bay Prawn and little or none in the claws.
The only meat is in the tail.
Photograph courtesy of Arnstein Rønning

  

Suprême de Volaille Farci a la Tapenade, Jus Corsé - Breast of chicken flavored with tapenade and served with the natural cooking juices. The tapenade used here for flavor is the popular Provençal anchoyade spread, made with anchovies, olives, garlic, olive oil, and added capers. The Provençal word for capers is tapéno, and so when we add capers to an anchoyade, we have a tapenade.

  

French diners (and the chefs) grow up knowing the names of all the pots and pans in the kitchen. Diners know about herbs and the centerpiece that will be the main course. Knowledgeable French diners expect that a menu listing in a good restaurant will give detailed information about how a dish is served. It is not enough to offer a braised or roast fish or steak. If a chef is preparing a dish with a sauce or herb, the diner wants to know all about it.

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Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman

 

behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com

 

Copyright 2010, 2015, 2021
 
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