How to Use Glace de Vivande in Your Cooking

Glace de viande is a French meat glaze made by reducing stock (dark veal stock, beef stock, or chicken stock) to about one-tenth of its original volume, resulting in a concentrated brown stock with a thick, shiny consistency. The result is more of a syrup than a sauce—a shelf-stable, highly flavorful meat concentrate that was essential in professional kitchens during the time of Auguste Escoffier, the most famous professional chef in France during the late-nineteenth century. You may still find glace de viande in high-end French restaurants as a glaze or ingredient in sauce, but home cooks and modern chefs use it rarely since it's so labor-intensive to make.

Glace and demi-glace are both brown sauces used in French cooking, but there's one key difference: Demi-glace is thinner than glace de viande. Whereas glace is stock reduced to one-tenth of its original volume, classic demi-glace is made either by reducing brown stock to between a quarter and half of its original volume, or by combining equal parts espagnole sauce (one of the mother sauces of French cuisine, made with a brown roux) and brown stock and reducing that by half. Demi-glace usually includes flavorings, such as sherry or red wine and spices like bay leaf or peppercorns.

The word glace means “glaze” in French, which is the traditional use for glace de viande—to add a glossy finish to roasted meats, such as lamb shanks. When you brush warm glace de viande onto the surface of the meat, it creates an appealing glossy surface and adds an extra hit of umami. Glace's long shelf life also makes it useful as an ingredient in sauce making: Add a spoonful to a pan sauce to boost its flavor. You can also add glace to simmering water to make a quick stock—think of it as the original bouillon cube.

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