Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Ah, oh, ah? Beef Au Jus

I do not speak French. This is not something I'm proud of, as I could have, and should have, picked it up by now. With that said, the mispronunciation of French culinary terms is one of my great guilty pleasures.

I know it's "oh" jus, and not "ahhh" jus, but that's how I grew up saying it, and I don't have any plans to start saying it right at this advanced age. Besides, the proper pronunciation sounds like you are surprised you're getting a sauce, and my way sounds like you are happy about it.

This is the most minimalist method for doing a quick au jus for your prime rib of beef. In a restaurant that specializes in prime rib, they have the benefit of massive amounts of bones and scraps to make a reduced, rich jus without having to thicken it.

At home however, we need to cheat a little bit. You can do this without the flour step, but I think most people prefer this beefy dipping sauce to have a little body to it. Not thick like gravy, but just a little something to help it adhere to the meat. By the way, that thin film of beef fat floating on the surface is fully intentional, as you are about to hear. Enjoy!




Beef Au Jus Ingredients:
1/4 cup beef fat, plus pan drippings from a cooked prime rib or other roast beef
1 1/2 tablespoon white flour
2 cups rich beef broth
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
*makes about 1 1/2 cups depending on how much you reduce

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

so i heard some things... you were making a cookbook? is it done? can i has?

Denise Michaels - Adventurous Foodie said...

You say "tomato" and I say "to-mah-to."

Who cares how you say it. It's delish. And I love the idea of using it almost as a soup stock. Sigh...

Anonymous said...

I don't care much about the pronunciation, but FYI, 'au jus' is not a noun phrase. It means 'with juice'. No such thing as 'hot, hot with juice', unless you know how to juice a with.

Tkriger said...

I can attest from personal experience - don't use any Pyrex brand roasting pans - they aren't really pyrex any more, and do sound like a gunshot when they explode on the stovetop....

Leftcoast Grassfed said...

Thanks for this great Au Jus recipe to accompany the prime rib. We're featuring a Holiday Prime Rib and linked to your site and used your video in our blog with full credit to you. (Hope that's OK!)

Will also be tipping off all customers to your Beef recipe section. It's fantastic!

Anonymous said...

Haha...the theatrics of these recent voiceovers are awesome! Keep up the good stuffin!

Anonymous said...

Hi Chef John,
Do you have a great recipe for a very crispy skinned baked potato? I love crisp potato skins but can’t seem to find a good recipe. The recipes I’ve tried makes the skin too soft. By the way, I’d prefer not to deep fry the skins. Thanks so much.
Martin

Chef John said...

Sorry, I've never had crispy baked skins! Not sure it's possible. :-(

Sal said...

Chef, When you poured out the excess fat from the pan drippings... is there any reason to reserve that fat for some other purpose? Or is that just ridiculously unhealthy? And how long can you safely store reserved meat fat?

Chef John said...

Not sure how long it lasts, but you can certainly save it and use it. I bet if you google it, you'd see lots of recipes like Yorkshire pudding.

Vincent said...

Would a Pyrex roasting pan be okay for this (and for roasting the prime rib in as well of course)?

Chef John said...

sure!

Axel14222 said...

Chef, Is that a different kind of whisk? You move it pretty quickly, but it doesn't look rounded at the bottom or like the "wires" are connected at the bottom. I've never seen one like that.
Thanks.

Unknown said...

Chef John, this may be a stupid question, but how do you get the drippings if the prime rib x method recipe calls for not opening the oven for 2 hours after the roasting?

Chef John said...

You can't! You'd have to do this with a separate sauce, or just do a quick au jus when it comes out of the oven. Good luck!

Unknown said...

My step son asked at the end of the meal if he could drink the rest of his sauce. Need I say more? I also followed the standing rib recipe. It was about 15 degrees short. Put it in a 350 oven for 30 minutes and it was WONDERFUL . Keep in mind we like it mid rare.