Gettin fond of fond
March 20, 2016 1:37 PM Subscribe
What are some great recipes that involve cooking with fond?
Honestly, I incorporate the use of fond into just about every dish I make that involves meat: braises, soups/stews, stir fries, pasta sauces. If it's not a dish that involves slow-cooking meat (like a braise or stew), I will typically cook the meat first, remove it from the pan, and then cook the veggies and liquid ingredients "on top" of the fond in the same pan, scraping it up as I go, adding the meat back in at the end. This is especially good for stir fries and soupy things like tomato sauce or curry.
Or if I'm doing some sort of slab-of-meat-plus-veggies weeknight dinner, I'll cook the meat first and then sautée the veggies in the same pan with some liquid. Current fave: pork chops with mushrooms and kale in cider vinegar.
This is also a really fun, simple dish that shows how much flavor one can get from a good fond: chicken and mushrooms.
posted by lunasol at 2:03 PM on March 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
Or if I'm doing some sort of slab-of-meat-plus-veggies weeknight dinner, I'll cook the meat first and then sautée the veggies in the same pan with some liquid. Current fave: pork chops with mushrooms and kale in cider vinegar.
This is also a really fun, simple dish that shows how much flavor one can get from a good fond: chicken and mushrooms.
posted by lunasol at 2:03 PM on March 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
Best answer: This is so open-ended I sort of don't know where to start; fond is the end product of sugars produced by meat or vegetables seared in fat.
If you want to extend the awesomeness, I've found a quarter cup of water after I've taken everything else out of the pan lets the fond release from the bottom of the pan and concentrate, over high heat, to maybe a few tablespoons. Then add maybe a quarter cup of red wine, white wine, sherry, etc., and let that reduce to a tablespoon. What you're left with is highly concentrated fantasticness which you then extend by adding heavy cream or butter over a gentler heat than you've done the other things (if you do that last part over high heat, you 'break the sauce' which is still delicious but not as pretty). This is the moment for salt and pepper.
You can play with adding shallots, mushrooms, garlic, at the early stages--but the basic formula above works for me. So it's: integrate the sauce into a liquid (wine or water), reduce to a third or so, expand with butter or cream. Your choices about adding garlic, vegetables, etc., depend on what you're doing at the base level-but the formula above works.
Put foil over whatever you've just cooked so it doesn't get cold while you're making the sauce.
Hope this helps?
posted by A Terrible Llama at 3:54 PM on March 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
If you want to extend the awesomeness, I've found a quarter cup of water after I've taken everything else out of the pan lets the fond release from the bottom of the pan and concentrate, over high heat, to maybe a few tablespoons. Then add maybe a quarter cup of red wine, white wine, sherry, etc., and let that reduce to a tablespoon. What you're left with is highly concentrated fantasticness which you then extend by adding heavy cream or butter over a gentler heat than you've done the other things (if you do that last part over high heat, you 'break the sauce' which is still delicious but not as pretty). This is the moment for salt and pepper.
You can play with adding shallots, mushrooms, garlic, at the early stages--but the basic formula above works for me. So it's: integrate the sauce into a liquid (wine or water), reduce to a third or so, expand with butter or cream. Your choices about adding garlic, vegetables, etc., depend on what you're doing at the base level-but the formula above works.
Put foil over whatever you've just cooked so it doesn't get cold while you're making the sauce.
Hope this helps?
posted by A Terrible Llama at 3:54 PM on March 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
Any gravy based on roasted meats will be fond-based.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:43 PM on March 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Thorzdad at 4:43 PM on March 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by dis_integration at 1:47 PM on March 20, 2016 [2 favorites]