by Marcus Bentley Wise

Created on: March 09, 2010   Last Updated: March 10, 2010

Deglazing a pan is a very simple operation that you do if you want to make the most of any sauce that you are making.

It is adding a liquid to a pan that you have cooked some meat in . The meat will have made some crystallised fats and sugars on the pan and that is what holds all the flavour . By adding a liquid you dissolve the crystallised juices and release the flavour in to the sauce. To do this properly you need to follow a few simple rules and you should be fine .

First you need a pan or roasting try . Make sure that it is clean and free from any carbonated black bits from any cooking before. If you get any old burnt on black bits for past cooking they give a bitter taste to the sauce.

Now if you are roasting just do what you normally would do . As you roast the crystallised juices will form in the roasting dish . Darin off any fat, if you are not going to make gravy, that might have gathered and then you are ready to deglaze the roasting dish.

If you are going to cook in a pan on the stove top then you must get your pan hot first. So when you put the meat in the pan it will seal and not start to stew as the water comes out of the meat. It is this real heat that seals in the moisture and so the meat does not dry out in cooking.

So you have cooked your piece of meat and now should have a roasting pan or frying pan with a nice brown layer of crystallized juices at the bottom .

Now if its your roasting try you need to put that on top of a burner so that you can get it nice and warm .If it is a frying pan then it should already be warm .

The next step is adding some liquid to the dish. Now what you use is up to you and rather depends on what you are cooking. You can use wine, cream, stock or even water. What you are looking for is something to soften the crystallised juices and release them in to the liquid to enhance the flavours of the sauce. The thing to remember is that whatever you are going to use it will start to evaporate with the heat that you are using so do not let it boil completely away .

Use a wooden spoon or spatula to help work the juices of the pan and into the sauce and that is about it.

What you should end up with is a enriched liquid that has all the flavours of whatever you have cooked in the sauce.

So next time you make a sauce or watch a program and you hear the phrase deglaze the pan , you will know what to do.

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