I try to make different meals for my kids when they are over, and a lot of recipes have making a sauce as part of them. And making the sauce is usually adding liquid (wine and cream or beef stock or similar) to the pan and reducing it. But the time frame in the recipes is usually like “Reduce for 2-3 minutes” but when I try it, the sauce is still watery and doesn’t seem to be reducing in that amount of time.
One stupid question, does an electric stove have anything to do with that?
And a regular question, are those times just wrong? Or am I doing something wrong? I try to time all the components together, but the sauce just screws it up.
A wide, shallow pan will reduce sauces faster than a deep bowl-shaped pot. Don’t be afraid to crank up the heat (just stick around! no wandering off!) so the sauce rolls at a full boil.
Not a stupid question at all - an electric element will take some time to come up to (and down from) high heat, while a gas flame can be adjusted to any level instantaneously (which is a big reason why many cooks prefer the latter.)
It’s not a huge deal, you just need to take that into account and modify your timing accordingly - the “2-3 minute reduction” doesn’t really start until things have come to the boiling point, which might take a minute or two longer after you’ve turned things up to high (and if things get too hot, you might need to move the pan off/on the burner to regulate as well as turning it down, because again it will be slower to respond)…with practice you will learn that recipe timings are just guidelines and will know that if, say, your sauce isn’t reduced and needs a few more minutes, so be it.
Yes to all of this, also if you reduce it a bit more you can mount it with a bit of butter to emulsify the sauce. Simmer it down for a few minutes, reduce the heat to low. Cut a few pats of butter into the pan and put the tines of the fork in the top of one and swirl quickly until the sauce comes together.
Great questions, manson. I’ve struggled with this as well. If I may add a couple of questions to the thread, please:
-If using cream… can the pan/sauce get too hot? Will it break it down, or something?
-Can I just use cornstarch to thicken things? What about gluten-free flour?
Cream is remarkably resilient. That’s a nice way to say “you can boil the shit out of it.” The only thing I’d worry about is if the pan is TOO hot the bits on the edges might burn to the pan. Keep it at a good boil but don’t go overboard.
The other thing about cream is you have to have CREAM. Half & half, milk, etc isn’t the same; it doesn’t reduce the same way and if you add acid (lemon juice, wine, whatever) it’ll separate. Ya gotta have the real stuff.
Yes, but you get a different mouthfeel from cornstarch. It’s used a lot in Asian sauces and puddings and the like. It tends to get glossy and slick. As long as that’s what you want, it works great. Here’s a good guide to thickening with corn starch.
No clue, sorry.
Another note around making sauces from stock. If you want stock to thicken, you have to have actual real stock made from bones with a good amount of gelatin in it, otherwise it won’t thicken, it’ll just reduce. That rules out pretty much everything but homemade stock - none of the canned/boxed stocks that I’ve seen are anything but flavored water. What you CAN do is add gelatin to them. Again, here’s a good guide to thickening with gelatin.
So the point of adding the liquid to the pan is to deglaze it, which means to basically lift up all the delicious burny bits that have built up over the course of your cooking and incoporate them into your sauce.
And yeah, the whole thing takes just a couple of minutes. It’s meant to be something you do while your meat is resting on the plate immediately before serving.
Also bear in mind that a pan sauce isn’t going to give you huge quantities. It’s just a little extra something for your meat. Make sure you’re not adding too much to your pan in an effort to get a ton of sauce.
**shunpiker: **the video I linked shows a sauce using cream, just follow those steps. As for cornstarch, sure, just make sure to follow the directions on the package (mix with cold water first). I have no idea about gluten-free flour.
The recipe ends up with about 3 cups of liquid in the pan and says reduce. I used the same time frames but after 10 minutes, it was still a liquidy juice in the pan. Just was wondering if I was doing something wrong, or my glass-top burners makes it take longer to reduce.
Are you following the visual indicators? Don’t add the stock until the wine is almost gone, don’t add the cream until the stock has considerably thickened? At no point should you have three cups of actual liquid in the pan.
yeah, sorry. I didn’t add them all at the same time. But it was taking forever. I didn’t even get to the cream part before I just gave up on it.
Re: beef stock vs broth. I tried looking around the Intertubes, but couldn’t find a definitive answer for which one to use so I just went with what the recipe called for.
Again, sorry if I sound stupid But I’m just trying to learn new meals for my kids to enjoy. My son doesn’t really like sauces, but he was interested in this one. I felt bad since we ended up with none.
Cooking is easier if I’m home alone - I just make Bud Lite
Okay, are you using a wide, shallow pan? Are you getting a rolling boil in the beef broth? Are you using an old pan that might be a little deformed on the bottom and therefore not completely touching the element?
I also see that the recipe has you start the sauce once you’ve put the pork into the oven for the final 12-15 minute roast, so you should have plenty of time to get this sauce working.
Cooking is science - you can’t just magically learn it, especially when it comes to alchemical stuff like sauce. I think it’s awesome that you’re expanding your horizons for your kids’ sake.
It’s just a 12" frying pan with higher sides from a set of pans like you would buy at Target.
I’m going to try it again this weekend, maybe it will turn out better. I enjoy cooking, but it’s just a pain when it’s just me. Unfortunately, my kids’ favorite meal is STILL meatloaf and mashed potatoes
Canned/boxed broth or stock or whatever they call it will never thicken; it’s essentially flavored water and will not thicken any more than water would thicken. It just boils down.
Homemade broth contains gelatin from the bones used to make it, thus when it reduces it does thicken. You can get the same sort of effect by adding unflavored gelatin to a sauce (see my link above for directions).
Overall, that recipe for pork tenderloin is just a bad recipe. They don’t explain that you can’t use store-bought broth and the timing is off. No way are you going to cook down 2 cups of broth to the point that it thickens in 4-5 minutes, no matter how great your stove or wide your pan is. It just takes longer than that.
Half of the trick to learning how to cook is starting with good recipes. Look for recipes from Cook’s Illustrated / Milk Street / Serious Eats; they tend to work. NY Times is good too, but tends to be a not quite as beginner-friendly. Random recipes off the internet are a risk.
Becks bad, bad, bad gravy:
Cook the meat (any)
Leave the pan on the fire, lowish heat
1/2 handful flour.
Sprinkle it on the oil and pan juices. Don’t stir
Walk away. Go wash the flour off your hands.
Go back to stove, look and see if the flour is browning alittle. Don’t stir.
Get 2 cups of liquid (any liquid: broth, stock, water from boiling potatoes, coffee, beer, or any combo, except beer and coffee together, spectacularly bad! Or plain water)
Get yer whisk in your stirring hand, pour the liquid in slowly while whisking briskly (:)).
It will thicken fast. Check by tasting it will want lots of pepper and salt.
Put the meat back in.
You now have proudly made Southern gravy. It will smother any thing from meat to bisquits.
Warning: If you eat enough of it you will start seeing it looking back at you in the mirror!
I had the same problem for years. Ultimately, I found the problem was the ambiguity of the word, “simmer.” My stovetop dials at the time had a simmer setting below low. Screw that; if you’re reducing a sauce, you need to actually see bubbles popping. I usually set it a little below medium.
Another thing is don’t stir it much when reducing. Stirring cools it down.
That was my thought as well- that 4-5 minute estimate is wildly inaccurate. Which is usually true of most estimates like that, I find. They say something like “cook onions until golden” and then quote something like 8 minutes. Which is funny, because it usually takes 5-10 minutes more to get them golden in my experience.
But I’m just trying to learn new meals for my kids to enjoy. My son doesn’t really like sauces, but he was interested in this one. I felt bad since we ended up with none.