Glaze
Take some strong meat soup or jelly (when fresh), boil it down until thick and quite brown, but not burnt. Put the glaze into a jar for use. When needed set it in boiling water; when the glaze softens sufficiently, brush over your meat with a glazing brush; this gives it the necessary brown. Ham or tongue is very nice varnished over with this. Glaze adds much to the appearance of many dishes and should be kept on hand.
This is glace de viande — stock reduced until it sets like rubber — described in the compressed shorthand of a book that assumed a stockpot was always going.
- What "strong meat soup or jelly" meansA well-made brown stock from roasted veal or beef bones, unsalted and already gelatinous enough to set firm when cold. Salted or seasoned stock concentrates into something inedible; salt the dish, never the glaze.
- The reductionAs a rough guide, several quarts of strained stock will cook down to a cup or so of glaze, though the yield depends entirely on how strong the stock was to begin with. Reduce uncovered over medium heat at first, then move to a smaller pan and lower the heat as it thickens, since the last stage scorches very quickly.
- "Thick and quite brown, but not burnt"This is the hinge. Stop when the glaze coats a spoon in a syrupy sheet and a drop set on a cold plate turns tacky and firm. Past that point the sugars in the stock catch and the whole batch turns bitter — there is no rescuing it.
- Strain before, not afterOnce reduced, the glaze is too thick to pass through a sieve. Strain the stock through muslin while it is still thin, and skim the fat off completely, or the finished glaze will not set clean.
- StorageThe period instruction to keep a jar "on hand" assumed a cold larder and constant use. Properly reduced glaze is very low in water and keeps several weeks refrigerated, but the safe modern practice is to pour it into an ice-cube tray, freeze, and bag the cubes.
- Softening for useStanding the jar in boiling water is still the right method — direct heat overcooks the edges before the middle moves. A cube melted in a small pan over the lowest flame works as well.
- Applying itA "glazing brush" is a soft pastry brush. Brush a thin coat over cold or barely warm ham or tongue and let it set before adding a second; a thick single coat slides off.
- Other usesBeyond varnishing cold meats, a teaspoon of glaze stirred into a pan sauce or a thin gravy does the work of commercial stock concentrate, with none of the salt.
Glaze is the household English name for what French professional kitchens called glace de viande, stock reduced to its most concentrated stage. It belongs to the era before bouillon cubes and commercial stock bases, when a kitchen that roasted joints regularly had bones and trimmings to spare and reducing them was simply thrift with a byproduct. Its appearance in a general-purpose domestic book like this one, rather than a chef's manual, shows how far professional technique had made its way into home cooking. The emphasis on appearance — "varnished over," "adds much to the appearance of many dishes" — belongs to a time when ham and tongue were presented whole on the sideboard.