Bordelaise sauce

Bordelaise sauce is a classic French sauce named after France’s Bordeaux region, which is well-known for its wine.

It’s a flavorful sauce made from dry red wine, butter, shallots, and demi-glace, with bone marrow as an optional but traditional ingredient.

Method

Begin by prepping your ingredients.

Cut up the butter, and chop the shallots into a fine dice.
Measure up all the liquids and set aside.

Bone marrow is optional, but it adds a lot of flavor and richness to the sauce.

Melt the butter in a pan and gently sauté the shallots until they turn translucent.

Set the pan to medium heat and pour in half of the wine, and add the bay leaf and thyme.

Allow the wine to simmer until it has reduced by half.

Blast it!

You can also do this Marco Pierre White style and set the heat to the absolute max and reduce the sauce really fast. He argues that it increases the flavor even more. But I prefer doing it on medium-high heat, since it's easier to control.

Add the remaining wine and let it simmer until reduced by half again.

Pour in the beef stock and the optional demi-glace. Continue to simmer until it’s reduced by half.

When the sauce is nearing completion, with just a few minutes remaining, stir in the optional bone marrow.

Strain the sauce through a fine sieve into a bowl, then clean the saucepan and return the sauce to it.

Tip!

Straining is optional, but it yields a smoother sauce. If you choose not to strain it, extract the thyme and bay leaf from the sauce.

Lower the heat to a very gentle simmer, and season with salt and white pepper to taste.

Deviation

If you want to stray away from the classic French recipe and create your own red wine sauce, now is the time!

You can add a splash of fish sauce which will give more umami flavor (no, it will not taste like fish), lemon juice to freshen it up or thicken it with dark brown roux or cornstarch. Some Worcestershire Sauce? Why not? Wanna make it darker? Add a dash of squid ink or black food coloring.

Right before serving, enrich the sauce by whisking in the cold butter for a velvety finish.

More recipes

Food & Drinks

Bordelaise sauce

Method

Blast it!

Tip!

Deviation

More recipes

Anything-goes chicken pasta

Asian pork marinade

Alabama Slammer

Basic pickling liquid

Bacon jam

Birria tacos

Basil-infused oil

Burger sauce

Buffalo Chicken Wing Sauce

Chili oil noodles

Cheddar dip

Dried citrus