Red wine and porcini mushroom sauce
The next best thing to do with a bottle of red wine. No kidding, a whole bottle of wine goes into this magical sauce. Serve with prime rib or any good steak.
- Yield: 8 -10 servings 1x
Ingredients
Scale
- 1/2 ounce dried porcini mushrooms
- 2 cups boiling water
- 2 small onions
- 6 T butter, divided
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2/3 cup shallots
- 1 carrot, peeled
- 1 rib celery
- 1 T tomato paste
- 2 sprigs parsley
- 1 sprig thyme
- 1 bay leaf
- 4 black peppercorns
- 1 bottle of dry red wine
- 2/3 cup veal or beef demi-glace
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Bring 2 cups of water to a boil. Put dried porcini mushrooms in a bowl and cover with hot water. Let sit 30 to 40 minutes while you prepare the vegetables. Line a mesh strainer with a couple layers of paper towels and drain the mushrooms through the strainer and into a bowl, retaining the liquid for the sauce. Set the liquid aside. Rinse the mushrooms and pat them dry. Chop very finely and set aside.
- Leaving the peel on, slice one onion in half from stem to stern. Set aside. In a food processor, finely mince the garlic. Peel the remaining onion, shallots and the carrot. Chop the onion, carrot and celery into a few large pieces and add them to the food processor. Pulse until all are finely chopped. Set aside.
- Heat 2 T of butter in a 2-quart sauce pan. Put onion halves cut-side down in the butter and cook over moderate heat until well-browned, about 4-5 minutes. Melt in another 2 T of butter and add chopped vegetables to the onion halves. Cook covered over medium-low for about 10 minutes until vegetables are soft. Add tomato paste, herbs and 2 cups of wine and bring to a boil. Reduce to medium heat and continue to boil until it looks like there is only about 1/2 cup of liquid left in the vegetables. The vegetables will look almost, but not quite dry. This will take about 30 minutes.
- Set a fine mesh sieve inside a larger bowl. Press the vegetables and liquid through the sieve using the back of a wooden spoon. Discard the solids and reserve the liquid. After you press down on the veggies you will get a cup or more of liquid.
- Wipe the saucepan clean to remove any remaining vegetable pieces. Put reserved mushroom liquid, remaining 1 3/4 cups of wine, liquid from the pressed vegetables and demi-glace back in the pan and heat to a boil. Continue boiling over moderately high heat until liquid is reduced to 2 cups, about 30 minutes. Stir in the minced porcini mushrooms and reduce to low heat. Whisk in remaining 3 T butter. Taste and season with salt and pepper.
- If serving prime rib or steak allow the meat to rest on a platter. Add any meat juices collect on the platter to the sauce and whisk in.