Demi-glace Demi-glace Demi-glace (English: "half glaze") is a rich brown sauce in French cuisine used by itself or as a base for other sauces. The term comes from the French word "glace", which, used in reference to a sauce, means "icing" or "glaze". It is traditionally made by combining one part Espagnole sauce and one part brown stock. The sauce is then reduced by half, strained of any left over impurities and finished with a sherry wine. Common variants of demi-glace use a 1:1 mixture of beef or chicken stock to sauce espagnole; these are referred to as "beef demi-glace" ("demi-glace
French cuisine cooks' guild regulations allowed for this movement. During the 16th and 17th centuries, French cuisine assimilated many new food items from the New World. Although they were slow to be adopted, records of banquets show Catherine de' Medici (1519–1589?) serving sixty-six turkeys at one dinner. The dish called cassoulet has its roots in the New World discovery of haricot beans, which are central to the dish's creation, but had not existed outside of the New World until its exploration by Christopher Columbus. Haute cuisine (, "high cuisine") has foundations during the 17th century with a chef named La Varenne. As