The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science

Pan sauces are made by deglazing (fancy word for
“pouring liquid into the hot pan”) the pan, usually with wine
or stock. By rapidly reducing this liquid, then adding a
couple of aromatics and finishing it off with a knob of
butter, you’ve got yourself a quick and easy sauce that
cooks in just about the same amount of time it takes for your
steak to rest properly. Built-in timer!
Here are a couple of simple pan sauces. The toughest part
of a pan sauce comes at the very end, when typically a bit of
cold butter is whisked into the sauce to thicken it, give it
some richness and body, and mellow out its flavor. The
French call this step monter au beurre, which translates
roughly to, “Please, Mrs. Cow, make my sauce extra-smooth
and delicious.” Or something like that. It’s not a hard
process, but if you aren’t careful, the sauce can break, with
greasy pools of butterfat floating on the surface of a thin,