The French kitchen is renown for all it's great food and techniques used in cooking today. 
Red wine sauce is one of my favorites, and is perfect if you have leftover red wine.

The basic recipe is fairly simple and you can modify it to your liking by adding ingredients.

Cooking is not about exact amounts of ingredients.  It's about tasting and adding what you feel is missing. It's more of an art than chemistry to me, unless you are baking or making desserts. The list below is just an estimation.

The basics ingredients:

Red Wine, equivalent to at least half a bottle. ( can be from different red wines.) 
Charlotte onion, 2-3 diced
White Pepper Beads, 8-12
Bay leaf, 1-2x
Thyme, dry 1 tbs or a bunch of thyme. 
Beef Stock/ Bouillon, a fair bit.
Butter 1 tbs
Glass of Red Wine to enjoy while cooking.

I like to have a bit of charred meat in mine to add flavor. Left over trim from any red meat will do. roasted tomato purée & blackened garlic. If you want more sweetness you can always add more sauteed charlotte onions or carrots to the red wine sauce. For lamb, elk, moose, deer you can add rosemary. 

Lets start off with the prep work:

 Use a file knife to trim the steak; remove visible tendons and connective tissue, cut off a bit of fat and meat for extra flavor. 

Dice The Charlotte Onions.

Cut the Garlic In half. 



Put the Tomato Purée on a tray and roast in the oven at 400F for 15-20 Minutes.



Tie some fresh Thyme.



Pan fry the trim at high heat in butter and oil until slightly charred. If you don't want the charred flavor just fry at a lower heat. Lower the heat when the meat looks like well done bacon.



When the heat is medium-low/low add and sautée the Charlote onion in oil. If you want less charred flavor, do the onions in a separate pan. The onions are done when they are transparent and sweet.



 Add charlotte onion, trimmings, bay leaf, white pepper beads and red wine to a pot.
Rinse the frying-pan with red wine and add to the sauce to preserve more of the flavor, add wine.

Boil at medium-high heat until half of the liquid has evaporated. Takes about 10-20 min depending on the amount of red wine.



While the sauce is reducing put a frying-pan on high and blacken the garlic. You might want to shut off the fire alarm.



With the sauce reduced to about half, add the garlic and the roasted purée and beef stock.



Turn down the heat and let it simmer.



Add water or wine if the sauce gets too reduced to prevent the red wine sauce from getting burned.



Add the thyme and lower the heat further. Let it simmer for an additional 10-15 minutes.



Transfer the sauce to a bowl.



Put the sauce in a strainer.



Push all liquid through the strainer with a spoon. After you are done scrape side facing the pot and add to the red wine sauce. Throw the rest that didn't pass through away.



Bring the sauce to a boil, lower the heat while stirring add butter, shut the heat off. Your red wine sauce is done. Hopefully your kitchen is not a complete mess.



The sauce can be put in the fridge for a few days if you don't want to use it straight away.

Works well with any red meat and a glass of red wine. 

I hope you have enjoyed the recipe.

Johan Hallberg