GRANT CRILLY: This is how
to make beef demi-glace out of vegetables. You get a really
beautiful umami pack jus demi that's nice and thick
and it will stick to pasta, stick to mushrooms,
stick to roasted carrots, whatever you want to put it on. It's super quick to make, and
it just tastes incredible. I prefer this actually
over traditional demi. Really straightforward process. You take a bunch of
vegetables, shave them all, roast them in the oven. Take them out of the oven. And then you kind
of go about how you would making a normal broth. So you add a little
bit of water, simmer for an hour or two. Strain it. And thicken it. The whole process takes about
60 minutes, maybe 90 minutes, from start to finish. Let's get going. You pick a bunch of vegetables. You kind of want to
separate your vegetables into two categories--
savory vegetables and sweet vegetables. Carrots and onions very sugary. So don't use a lot of
them, because by the time you make your sauce, you're
going to have a syrup. Eggplant, broccoli,
shiitake mushrooms-- use loads of those-- super
savory-- lots of umami. Take all the vegetables,
shave them nice and thin. I don't peel anything. I don't prep anything. I just slice it
all, because it's going to get roasted so much. A lot of the times I
want that skin flavor. I want the tannins. I want the depth. Then we add a little
bit of tomato paste. That way you get
some nice acidity. About that much. Then we add loads of
kombu, you know the seaweed that you get in miso soup. You don't have to
add oil, but I'm going to add a little bit just
because it helps it not stick. I'm going to use my hands . I want to get that tomato
paste really mixed up. This whole pan of
veggies-- probably like three pounds of
veggies-- and it'll probably make about 200 or
300 grams really rich of vegan demi-glace. You want to roast
it low and slow. So we put it in a 300 degree
oven for about 40 minutes, 45 minutes. It's ready. You can tell by
how dark they are. So it looks like it's kind
of caramelized at first. You got like, oh,
that's perfect. You actually want
to take them almost to being burnt,
otherwise, you'll still have a sweet sauce. You want a little bit of
those deep, complex roasty flavors in there. So at this point, what
you're going to do is add water back to this. Pop it right back
in the same oven. Let it hang out for probably
another 30, 40 minutes. And you're going to
start to pull out of that beautiful, rich
flavor into the water. All this goes in
a little strainer. It's almost ready. You just cook this down for
another 20 or so minutes on the stove, until it's
nice and reduced, until you have about half as much or so. But it will still be thin. And from there, you add a pinch
of pectin, pinch of Xanthan, if you want. And that's going to give you
that nice puh-puh-puh mouth feel that stickiness. If you don't do that--
if you don't thicken it-- you'll end up with
more flavorful, like more concentrated, but
still thin vegetable jus. If you thicken it, you get
this nice, sticky texture. So when you put it on pasta, put
it on veggies, it will stick. Mmmmm. Really, I think this
whole cooking thing might work out for you, Grant. Yes. Like with all sharp things,
don't slice your hands off. Don't use them to
slice your body parts. I don't think I've
ever sliced meat with a mandolin, living or dead. Let's have fun with it. Little from the side. Yes.
