Red Wine Sauce
As you can probably guess from the name, red wine sauce is made using red wine as the primary ingredient. Making this sauce is pretty easy too. When making this sauce, red wine is heated, mixed with butter and stock, herbs, garlic, spices, onions and other ingredients to make a sweet tasting sauce. Some wine sauces can even be prepared through reduction of the wine. This sauce is rather popular and goes well with several types of dishes. For example, you can serve your wine sauce with poultry, seafood or even beef.
Origin
Wine sauce originated from French cuisine. It can be made out of Fish velouté which is a sauce base from which all sauces can be prepared. You can also use this base to create white wine sauce and champagne sauce.
Ingredients
Typical ingredients are: Red Wine, stock, mushrooms, butter, tarragon vinegar, shallots
How to make wine sauce
Making wine sauce is pretty easy. You can choose to use reduced wines if you want a thicker sauce with a stronger taste or wines that have not undergo reduction to prepare a light sauce. You can also add in some cream or milk if you want your sauce to be creamy and airy.
There are several different types of wine sauces. The first type, sauce poivrade is made by mixing thickened flour with moistened wine and a splash of vinegar. This sauce is then heavily seasoned with pepper.
The second type of wine sauce is called Sauce Bourguignonne. This sauce is made using red wine and onions or shallots.
There is yet another wine sauce that is called Bordelaise sauce. This sauce is actually a classic French sauce that is prepared with meat glaze, red wine butter, shallots and bone marrow. This is a tasty sauce that you can find in almost any restaurant.
There is another type of wine sauce that is called Sauce Lyonnaise. This is also a French sauce that is prepared by using white wine, vinegar and onions. This wine sauce is always best served with meat.
What goes well with red wine sauce?
Wine sauce is very flexible in terms of what you can serve it with. Wine sauce can be served alongside seafood dishes like salmon or even tuna. In fact, wine sauce is often described as the perfect sauce for fish.
You can also serve wine sauce with poultry dishes like quail and chicken. There is even a French dish, Coq au vin, which is a chicken dish prepared using wine sauce. You can also use wine sauce to prepare a Swiss steak dish or even pork dishes.
Wine sauce is also used at times to marinade seafood preparations like herring. Wine sauce to be used for such purposes is often made a bit differently. In this sauce, the vinegar is boiled the wine, sugar, onion and spices are then added into the mixture. Next the mixture is left to stand before using it to marinate seafood.
Red wine sauce
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon butter
- 1 piece Onion
- 2 pcs Scallops
- 1.5 tsp Thyme dried
- 3 dl Red wine
- 2 dl Water
- 1 piece Okso cotton dice possibly 2
- 1 tbsp Tomato puree
- 1 tbsp Acacia honey or almond honey / sugar
Additional tips
- 2 tbsp beef fin adds extra flavor - only half a broth
- 0.5-1 dl cream adds an extra soft taste
Instructions
- Melt butter in a saucepan and put it on medium heat.
- Put the chopped onions in the butter. Cook them well for a couple of minutes. They should not take color.
- Add the dried thyme and cook approx. 1 minute
- Then add half of the water and half of the red wine. Add tomato purée and beef broth in (and possibly beef fund - read more under tips). Make sure the broth is dissolved in the liquid. Cook well for 3-4 minutes.
- Pour it all through a sieve so you end up with a nice and clear liquid.
- Then add the remaining red wine and water, as well as the acacia honey.
- Turn up the heat so that it boils strongly. Let the sauce boil 1/3 in or until it has the consistency you want.
- Taste with cream. CAUTION with salt. Often nothing should be added at all, as there is a lot of salt in broth, so if you use broth first, start with 1 dice. There is a lot of difference between the brands.
Video
Notes
- I mainly use beef fund. It can be bought in many variations. I use half a beef-broth, and about 2 tbsp fund. You can always add more at the end if you want more flavor.
- The cream is really good to finish of the taste. It may be boiled if you want to cook it a little more after adding it. You can leave it if you want your sauce a bit more healthy.
Nutrition
If you like this sauce then try the peppercorn sauce too.
