How to Make a Gastrique
What is a gastrique?
A gastrique is a vinegar and sugar based sauce that can be used for either savory or sweet dishes as it is designed to bridge the gap between the two.
How to make a gastrique:
This technique can be adapted to use any vinegar. Good balsamic vinegars are often used but you can also use wine vinegars or fruit vinegars. For this post we are making a Cranberry Port Gastrique which pairs wonderfully with venison meat.
Ingredients:
1 cup granulated sugar, superfine sugar, or organic evaporated cane juice
~ 1 cup water
A handful of dried cranberries or dried black cherries
1.25 cup ruby port
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
Cooking procedure:
Make a simple caramel
1. Mix the sugar and enough water (near a cup) to reach the consistency of wet sand in a saucepan.
2. Bring to a boil and cook, boiling out the water, until the mixture begins to take on color.
Keep in mind, the more water is boiled out, the less the heat of the sugar is confined by the boiling point of water. The hotter the sugar gets, the faster it cooks. It is possible for some of the sugar to caramelize faster than the rest. If you see darker spots developing in your caramel, give it a gentle stir to incorporate them, giving you a better idea of how dark the caramel is as a whole.
Safety Warning: Cooked sugar (be it for caramel, candy, brittles, meringues, sugar art, etc) is dangerous stuff. It is very sticky and will burn you badly if it touches your skin. Please be extremely careful.
Build the sauce
1. Remove the caramel from the heat and gently (no splashes) add a handful of diced dried fruit.
2. Return to the heat and drizzle in the red wine vinegar. Allow the mixture to reduce slightly.
3. Remove the sauce from the heat again and add the port, return to the stove and reduce. Pull from the heat when the gastrique has reached the nappe stage (when it just coats the back of a spoon without running off, and running your finger through it leaves a clean stripe of visible spoon).
The gastrique will continue to thicken as it cools.
Use to sauce your dish (or put it on the side for dipping purposes) and serve.
I am going to copy this off and send to my brother-in-law and his family. The eat a lot of venison because of the one son being such a hunter. I’m sure they will love this. Thanks for posting this. Lynn A.
March 22nd, 2009 at 11:18 pmGreat recipe Matthew. I’m thinking about doing a similar sauce with some of the spices I recently received. The Tellicherry Peppercorns and a pinch or two of cinnamon along with an apple juice base instead of vinegar should give me a really good kind of fall flavor (my favorite time of year) that would be great with chicken (or any game bird, if one could afford it).
March 23rd, 2009 at 3:28 pmMatthew, I’ve been looking at this recipe again and want to make it, and would like to try it out for myself. What sorts of meats would this work on? I’m thinking this might work very well for barbecue. What do you think? Lynn A.
March 28th, 2009 at 3:01 pmDear Lynn,
Gastriques do have several similarities with vinegar-based barbeque sauces, so I think you might have something there. I imagine a carefully balanced gastrique could work with most meats depending on what it was flavored with.
The easiest paring would probably be to use a fruit gastrique with meats that are already often paired with fruit, such as venison, rabbit, duck, and pork.
As for using this exact recipe, cherries work very well with most game meats (including the ones I just mentioned). You could also try a turkey/cranberry gastrique combo for a play on the traditional Thanksgiving pairing, although I might back off on the port a tad to lighten it up.
Hope those suggestions are helpful!
Matthew
March 30th, 2009 at 8:42 amMatthew, This is going to be part of the Easter dinner. I think alongside the cranberries I will put out a gastrique with cranberries in it as an option. My family will like to test this out. This is a great idea. Thanks.
Lynn A.
March 30th, 2009 at 12:59 pm