Whether the entrée tonight is pork, veal or beef it’s nice to have a sauce and vegetable. But that can be a hassle: two tasks, two pots and two timelines, in addition to preparing the entrée.
Why not prepare, in a single pan, some veggies in a sauce-like way to produce a pleasant mixture? French cooks call this a fonduea mixture of vegetables, cooked slowly, and served as a garnish. That’s nice, but in this country, a fondue refers to food cooked in a pot at the table. So, to avoid confusion, let’s call what we’re after here a medley.
The idea is to cook some nicely cut veggies and, in the process, create a sauce. The whole mess to be served as a bed for, let’s say, medallions of pork or beef. Veggies are easy, you say, but the sauce, huh? We start with a can of chicken broth. Bring it to boil and reduce the volume by one-half, through evaporation. Then add the broth reduction to the cooked veggies. And/or (preferred): prepare the veggies, add some demi-glace and a smaller amount of the broth reduction.
We have discussed demi-glace before. The off-the-shelf demi-glace, sold by Williams Sonoma, works fine here.
So, here we have a medley of shallots, red peppers and Portobello mushrooms:
MEDLEY PORTOBELLO
Yield: 4 servings as a bed or garnish for beef or pork
See abbreviations, if needed
· 3T extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
· 4 shallots, diced
· 2 red peppers, small dice
· 1 – 1 ½ C Portobello mushroom pieces (sliced, gilled and broken into pieces)
· 14 oz can, chicken broth, reduced by half
· 3 T demi-glace
· S/P to taste
1. Sauté shallots in EVOO to light brown, add S/P
2. Reduce heat to medium and add peppers, cook about five minutes
3. Add mushrooms and cook another five minutes or until all appears nicely cooked and appetizing
4. Add the demi-glace and stir it into the veggies as it melts
5. Taste and adjust seasoning
6. (optional) for more sauce: add 1 or 2 ounces of the broth reduction (save the rest in the fridge)
7. Serve the medley as a bed with medallions of pork or beef
