I am reaching new heights of food-snobbery

[cjsmith]

ambar, you are so right. Using canned beef broth is like drinking white Zin.

Comments

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Get yourself a jar of demi glace. It's pricey, but a little goes a *long* way, and it saves having to use homemade stock.

I use maybe a tablespoon in my onion soup (my recipe makes about four quarts). Makes all the difference in the world. For beef based dishes, you can use either veal or beef demi glace.

I like it better than soup bases, which tend to be salty. Demi glace is richer.

Williams-Sonoma sells it online (http://www.williams-sonoma.com/shop/fod/fodsau/fodsaudem/index.cfm?cm_type=lnav).

ETA: I use Wolfgang Puck's packaged beef stock for my onion soup.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I have zero clue here. What do you do with demi glace? Add it to canned broth? Add it to water?

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Add it to the hot broth/stock/soup, then whisk it in. Or, to make things a little easier, take some (about a cup) of the hot broth/stock/soup from the pot and whisk the demi glace into that until dissolved, then add it all back to the pot.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh cool. So if I made onion soup with onions and canned beef broth, I'd add this stuff to make the flavors richer and more complex? It sounds like exactly what I didn't know I needed!

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Exactly!