No. 402

Meat Glaze, Plain

Glace de Viande Simple

To Prepare Meat Glaze.—In the every day work of a kitchen, the meat glaze is always prepared either with the superfluous stocks or remoistening broths; it is a very easy matter to accomplish this. Skim off the fat from all surplus stocks, and then strain them; should they be troubled, clarify with a little lean beef operating the sauce as for consomme. After the liquid is once strained, set it into one or several saucepans, pouring it off steadily from the sediment, and reduce the liquid quickly, while stirring it in the saucepan with a ladle, until it becomes slightly thick; now pour it into a smaller saucepan, and leave it to boil on one side of the fire, while skimming, until the glaze is quite thick, then pour it into cans and let it get cold in a cool place to use when needed.

← No. 401 Meat Glaze, Clear Stocks, Essences & Auxiliaries No. 403 Root Glaze →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer treats meat glaze as a by-product of a working kitchen rather than a dish in its own right: leftover stock, reduced until it sets. The method is sound today, with two changes — never salt the stock, and refrigerate or freeze the finished glaze rather than leaving it in a cool larder.

Start unsaltedReducing 8 cups of stock to half a cup concentrates salt by roughly sixteen times. Any stock destined for glaze must be seasoned at zero; salt the finished sauce instead.
"Remoistening broths"These are the liquids used to moisten braises and pot-roasts as they cook — the mouillement. In a modern kitchen the equivalent is strained braising liquid, roasting-pan deglazings and leftover stock, all pooled together.
"Should they be troubled"Troubled means cloudy. Ranhofer's clarification here is with lean beef alone, handled as for consomme: minced lean beef stirred into the cold stock and brought slowly to a bare simmer, then left alone (egg white is the familiar modern addition, not what is specified here). For glaze it is optional — clarity matters less once the liquid is reduced to a dark syrup.
"Pouring it off steadily from the sediment"This decanting step is the one that decides whether the glaze tastes clean or scorched. Fine solids sink, then catch and burn on the pan bottom during the final reduction. Let the strained stock stand, then pour off the clear liquid and discard the last inch.
Stepping down pan sizesReduce fast and wide at first, then move to a smaller saucepan as the volume drops, as Ranhofer directs. A shallow layer in a wide pan over high heat scorches; the transfer keeps the liquid deep enough to move.
"On one side of the fire"On a coal range this meant pulling the pan to a cooler part of the top so it boiled gently rather than hard; uneven heating of this kind also tends to gather the scum to one side, which makes skimming easier. On a gas or induction hob, use low heat and offset the pan slightly, or simply skim as needed.
Knowing when it is doneFinished glaze coats the back of a spoon heavily and falls in thick sheets; when cold it should be firm and rubbery, sliceable rather than pourable. Expect roughly 1 cup of glaze from 12-16 cups of good stock.
StorageIgnore the cans and the cool place. Set the glaze in an ice-cube tray, freeze, and keep the cubes bagged; one cube enriches a pan sauce. Refrigerated in a sealed jar it keeps a few weeks, but it is not concentrated enough to be shelf-stable at room temperature.

A Little History

Glace de viande is the end point of the French stock hierarchy — stock reduced until the gelatin sets it solid — and Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York across two separate spells, presents it here exactly as a nineteenth-century professional kitchen understood it: not something you set out to make, but something you salvaged. A brigade producing consomme, braises and sauces all day generated gallons of surplus liquid, and reducing it to glaze turned waste into a concentrated seasoning that would keep. That economy may well be why the entry sits among the auxiliaries rather than the sauces. The commercial descendants are everywhere — bouillon cubes, the tubs of veal and beef glace sold to restaurants — but they are generally salted and thickened, where Ranhofer's is nothing but stock and time.