deglaze? what the hell does that mean?

here's a bit of help for you to actually deglaze correctly and make your food more flavourful

I bet you have seen this word many times in recipes and heard it from the mouths of different chefs. Sometimes you hear it and think, what does that word even mean?

here I am just cooking vegetables, making them super brown and yummy

The technical definition typically goes something like this... Deglazing is a cooking technique for removing and dissolving browned food residue from a pan to flavour sauces, soups, and gravies. Basically it's getting all the good stuff off of the bottom of the pan and getting the flavour into the sauce and usually making it thicker. When you are creating a dish, sometimes deglazing is one of the most important parts of creating the end product.

Now, how do you properly get body and flavour when you are creating something to eat? By properly sauteing the mirepoix (onion, celery, carrot), or vegetable base and getting it fully brown, then deglazing the bottom to get the flavour off the pan.

Deglazing is something that is commonly done with wine in classical cooking, but can be done

with basically any liquid available. It may be water, or juice or even beer. Using plain old water can do the same thing as any other flavoured liquid would do, but if it is a liquid with flavour, chances are the end product will be better.

getting the base going for a quick tomato sauce for dinner doesn't take much time at all

When making sauces, soups or gravies, the trick when you are doing it, is to really cook the vegetables until they are properly browned. When you properly cook the vegetables, they will release their natural sugars and begin to caramelize, creating colour. And that my friends is how you get flavour.

Patience, patience people, because this process takes time. The end result will be much more tastier and will give you a better end result if you let the food take it's time to create itself.

You do need a bit of fat at the begging to get your pan going with the vegetables, but once it gets going you can see the colour will start changing.

I once had this chef that told me, when you are properly cooking your mirepoix, you should deglaze the pan at least 3 times. I don't know if 3 is completely necessary, but I got where he was coming from. Water is your friend guys, so if you see it cooking too fast, just add a touch of water and stir it well so it does not burn on the bottom of the pan.

it's all about that flavour

Another thing to consider is when you are cooking with wine, is what wine to even cook with. Just as a go to rule; if you wouldn't drink it yourself, then don't bother cooking with it. You may have had the wine on the counter open for a few weeks and think i could just throw it in this sauce. Well you could, but also you could just open a bottle that you may are planning on drinking with dinner and use a bit of that instead.

So guys, remember the next time you are making something that has a sauce, have patience. Good food takes time and will be more flavourful if you wait for it.

Let me know if you have any questions or concerns regarding delgazing and happy cooking pals!