Stock, sauce, and two steaming rice bowls

Occasionally, Paul will bring home a lovely bottle of wine from Trader Joe's that reminds us of a trip we took or a meal we had. The bordeaux he last brought conjured up memories of Paris, picnicking near the Eiffel Tower with a bottle of Le Canotier bordeaux and stinky Camembert d'Isigny. We didn't quite finish the bottle, and rather than let such good wine go to waste, I decided to use up some of the mushrooms that were starting to deteriorate and make sauce.

A freezer filled with stock greatly simplifies sauce-making. As long as you have flour, butter, and some sort of liquid (stock, milk, cream), you can make sauce. The basic thickening agent of many sauces is roux--white, blond, and brown--which is a combination of equal parts flour and fat by weight. Cooking the roux for longer toasts the flour for longer, creating a deeper, nuttier flavor in the final sauce.

My mushroom red wine sauce uses a blond roux, though it could just as easily use a brown one. I usually cook the roux until it becomes a healthy shade of golden brown (as opposed to chocolate brown) before I stir in the wine.

1 T butter
1 shallot, minced
6-10 mushrooms, sliced
Roux: 2 T butter, 3 T flour
1 c red wine, at room temperature
Stock as needed, at room temperature
Herbs, salt, and pepper

Heat 1 T butter in a pan over medium heat. Saute shallots until fragrant, then add mushrooms and saute until a brown crust forms on the mushrooms. Remove from pan. Melt 2 T butter over medium to medium-high heat in same pan, then gradually shake in 3 T flour, stirring constantly, until fully incorporated. Cook until the roux reaches a healthy golden brown. Add the wine in a steady stream, stirring constantly. Don't add it all at once unless you want lumps in your sauce. Add sauteed mushrooms and shallots, and cook until sauce thickens, about 5 minutes. Add stock if necessary to increase volume or decrease thickness. Season as desired and serve. The finished sauce should be velvety smooth and slightly shiny. I like to eat it over roasted vegetables and brown rice.