I have a confession.  I’ve never made espagnole- or brown- sauce before.  So, I read a bunch a recipes and went for it, including making my own stock (I’d done that before.)  I am mostly following the Spruce Eats version.  I wanted to follow a recipe because we are trying to show the official versions of the mother sauces. I made my own stock because this is “a project”. But you should feel free to use purchased stock.  Just choose something with low or no salt as you will be reducing the stock and it could end up too salty if you are not careful.

KK and I decided to serve rib eye steaks and steak house type sides with our sauce, which gave me the opportunity to show off my Game of Thrones-esque steak knives.

That’s a moose!

 

Here we go:

 

The sauce was delicious (as were the steaks and sides).  I’m not sure I would make it again for anything other than a dinner party/holiday feast as this took a long time.  Escoffier is writing for restaurant chefs who prepare the sauces early in the day and have time to tend to their sauces.  If I were to make it again, I would go a little easier on the tomato and maybe add another bay leaf.