I forgot I promised to post the video for the simple peach sauce I used to drizzle over the duck breasts in the stove-top sous vide recipe. I've done sauces similar to this in the past, but used the term gastrique to describe them.Technically, a gastrique starts with caramelized sugar, to which sugar and fruit juice are added, but for my purposes here in Food Wishes land, it was close enough. So, while I was putting this quick and dirty clip together, the working name was "peach gastrique." Then I remembered I'm not French, and most likely neither are you.
At that point, I decided to simply call it a peach sweet and sour sauce. What it lacks in pretentious French cooking lingo-ness, it more than makes up for in accuracy and approachability. Beyond semantics, there really is no recipe here, but more of a ratio.
One part vinegar, two parts peach preserves, three parts chicken broth, plus whatever seasonings. Boil, reduce, and serve – and of course, enjoy!
Ingredients for 2 portions of Peach Sweet and Sour Sauce:
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
2 tablespoons peach preserves
3 tablespoons chicken broth or other liquid (wine, fruit juice, etc.)
pinch of Chinese 5-Spice
pinch of cayenne
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste, depending on what you are serving it on (mine didn't need any, since I was serving over nicely salted, crispy duck skin).
View the complete recipe
12 comments:
great to know... making a simple 1-2-3 sauce and using interesting combinations can bring simple dishes up a notch!
thanks for the great tip CJ!
Voted for you for the Tasty Awards ... So glad you won in your category ... you deserve it.
John,
We might not be French but we might be cultured and sophisticated enough to use or accept a French term. Don't dumb down your audience.
Thanks for that, it brought back memories of my Mum, she used peach sweet and sour over lightly battered tasmanian scallops when I was a child. It was a special treat we didnt have it often.
This has nothing to do with dumbing anything down. As I explained, this is not technically a gastrique, so this name is actually smartening it up I think.
Are you saying "gastrique" is more cultured and sophisticated than a "peach sweet and sour sauce?" If so, that is so French.
hey anonomous at January 16, 2011 2:25 PM
Please, lets not get caught up in the semantics of culinary terms ... we can leave that for the food snobs ...
It's all about the food, not the name.
Looks Tasty as always! Congrats on the Tasty award! by the way, What is that Tasty looking dish behind the duck..It looks like lentils of some sort. and i bet that dish is also Tasty!..just wondering.
woah.. which district of SF did you buy that whisk at?
Very nice recipe, thanks.
I usually use pineapple for my sweet and sour sauce, never though of trying it with peach, I will give it a try.
I made your black pepper pork tenderloin with the cherry reduction last weekend. Instead of using cherry preserves i used peach because thats all i had and it looks nearly identical to this except minus the 5 spice. Tasted amazing.
Just to please the french-food-gods why not just call it a "gas-tweak". Loved your Duck sous-vide and this sauce looks so perfect. I would imagine this would go great on a pork tenderloin, huh? If I'm wrong, don't tell me cuz that's what I'm making it for tonight. Congrats on yr award, so deserved. Much {{{{applause}}}}
thanks! :-)
the sauce is beautiful! (for poster above, i think you can find the 'kinky whisk' by putting in search term "ball whisk" on froogle.com ; for a whisk, it is lovely to clean with no crevices for sticky things to get stuck, yet it mixes viscous fluids with peach strips in it in no time flat!) Otherwise, thank you Chef John for the good tip to add ginger and organge zest to the sauce! Ever grateful!
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