Gastrique is caramelized sugar, deglazed with vinegar or other sour liquids, used as a sweet and sour flavoring for

sauce In cooking, a sauce is a liquid, cream, or semi-solid food, served on or used in preparing other foods. Most sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavor, moisture, and visual appeal to a dish. ''Sauce'' is a French word ...

s. The gastrique is generally added to a

fond In the culinary arts, fond is a contraction of ''fonds de cuisine'' which is loosely described as "the foundation and working capital of the kitchen". It refers to a flavorful liquid that is used as foundation (''fondation'' in French, hence the ...

, reduced

stock In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the Share (finance), shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which owners ...

brown sauce Brown sauce is a condiment commonly served with food in the United Kingdom and Ireland, normally dark brown in colour. The taste is either tart or sweet with a peppery taste similar to that of Worcestershire sauce. Brown sauce is typically eate ...

. It is also used to flavor sauces such as tomato sauce, savory fruit sauces and others, such as the orange sauce for duck à l'orange. The term is often broadened to mean any sweet and sour sauce, e.g. citrus ''gastrique'' or mango ''gastrique''. An '' agrodolce'' is a similar sauce found in

Italian cuisine Italian cuisine (, ) is a Mediterranean cuisine David 1988, Introduction, pp.101–103 consisting of the ingredients, recipes and cooking techniques developed across the Italian Peninsula and later spread around the world together with wav ...

. It is different from the Belgian sauce base of the same name, which consists of vinegar, white wine,

shallots The shallot is a botanical variety (a cultivar) of the onion. Until 2010, the (French red) shallot was classified as a separate species, ''Allium ascalonicum''. The taxon was synonymized with ''Allium cepa'' (the common onion) in 2010, as the d ...

, tarragon stems,

bouquet garni The ''bouquet garni'' ( French for "garnished bouquet"; ) is a bundle of herbs usually tied with string and mainly used to prepare soup, stock, casseroles and various stews. The bouquet is cooked with the other ingredients and removed prior to ...

and peppercorns. The gastrique with this composition was already used by

Auguste Escoffier Georges Auguste Escoffier (; 28 October 1846 – 12 February 1935) was a French chef, restaurateur and culinary writer who popularized and updated traditional French cooking methods. Much of Escoffier's technique was based on that of Marie-Ant ...

, but at the end of the 19th century, Louis Védy from

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

turned it into a plant extract that ensures a constant level of acidity when making

béarnaise sauce Béarnaise sauce (; ) is a sauce made of clarified butter emulsified in egg yolks and white wine vinegar and flavored with herbs. It is widely regarded as the "child" of the Hollandaise sauce. The difference is only in the flavoring: Béarnaise u ...

History

Caramel dissolved in vinegar is used by

Escoffier Georges Auguste Escoffier (; 28 October 1846 – 12 February 1935) was a French chef, restaurateur and culinary writer who popularized and updated traditional French cooking methods. Much of Escoffier's technique was based on that of Marie-Ant ...

in 1903, with no special name, just described as "sucre cuit au caramel blond, dissous avec 1 décilitre de vinaigre" in his recipes for Sauce Romaine and Carpe à la Polonaise; similarly,

Prosper Montagné Prosper Montagné (; 14 November 1865 – 22 April 1948) was one of the most renowned French chefs of the Belle Époque and author of many books and articles on food, cooking, and gastronomy, notably Larousse Gastronomique (1938), an encyclopedic ...

in 1922 just says "caramel au vinaigre", and the ''Répertoire de la Cuisine'' says "caramel blond dissous au vinaigre". The name ''gastrique'' appears to have come in with ''

nouvelle cuisine ''Nouvelle cuisine'' (; ) is an approach to cooking and food presentation in French cuisine. In contrast to cuisine classique, an older form of haute cuisine, nouvelle cuisine is characterized by lighter, more delicate dishes and an increased em ...

'' by the 1980s, defined as an "indispensable preparation used in making sauces to accompany hot creations including fruits, such as duck à l'orange".Henry Viard, Ninette Lyon, ''Eloge de la gourmandise'', 1983, , p. 21

References

External links

Chef Simon ''Gastrique de base''
Sauces {{Cuisine-stub