Vanilla Port Wine Sauce

By Craig Nielsen, Contributing Editor

As the food world continues to rush ahead to the next big thing," it might be worthwhile to take a moment to investigate how surprising combinations of relatively common ingredients might offer delicious results. The combination of Port wine and vanilla in a sauce presents a unique flavor thats epicurean, yet familiar, and versatile enough to complement a number of meat and poultry dishes.

Vanillas flavor, as well as its flavor-enhancing capabilities, makes it a great choice to pair with a tawny Port. It mingles with the Ports typical fruity and nutty notes, and adds creaminess while mellowing some of the Ports acidic bite and the tartness of the cherries.

The vanilla bean paste used in the recipe and scaled-up formula combines a single-strength Madagascar Bourbon vanilla extract with vanilla seeds in a slightly viscous base. It offers visual culinary cues via the bits of real vanilla seeds and helps keep the sauce a little thicker.

This vanilla Port wine sauce is specifically recommended to pair with a roasted rack of lamb seasoned with a rub of salt, pepper and with some of the vanilla paste (letting the lamb sit and marinate under refrigeration for one hour before roasting). However, it would also work well with duck, Cornish hen, bison, and game meats like wild boar and venison.

Since using regular Port wine is generally not an option for manufactured products (the inclusion of alcohol causes nightmares for interstate commerce), a reductionwhich has all of the alcohol cooked offis used for the scaled-up sauce. Using a concentrated Port wine reduction also saves money on ingredient shipping, since water can be added at the plant. Likewise, sourcing freeze-dried shallots is more plant-friendly than using fresh. Also, sourcing diced cherries helps facilitate pumped aseptic filling, fully automating the packaging processbut still maintains some of the visual appeal the whole cherries add to the gold-standard sauce.

Finally, adding a stabilizer gum blend (xanthan and guar) helps the manufactured sauce attain the desired level of viscosity and maintain a stable emulsion during its ambient-temperature shelf life. This hydrocolloidgenerally considered a natural," label-friendly ingredientalso aids with consistent suspension of the vanilla bean flecks and diced cherries.

Recipe:

Ingredients

¾ cup dried tart cherries

2 cups tawny Port

3 tablespoons olive oil

1½ tablespoons butter

1 large shallot, diced

1½ tablespoons vanilla bean paste

Procedure: Place the cherries and Port in a bowl. Set aside for 30 minutes. In a saucepan over medium heat, add the olive oil and half of the butter. Add the diced shallot; simmer, stirring occasionally, until translucent. Add the Port and cherry mixture and reduce, stirring occasionally until slightly thickened. The mixture should lightly coat the back of a wooden spoon. Whisk in remaining butter and the vanilla bean paste.

Formula:

Ingredients                                                                                            % by Weight

Water                                                                                                    58.82

Cherries, tart, ¼-in. diced, dried                                                              22.64

Port reduction, tawny, 10X                                                                        6.31

Olive oil                                                                                                  5.66

Vanilla bean paste                                                                                    2.83

Butter, unsalted                                                                                        2.83

Shallots, minced, freeze-dried                                                                    0.81

Stabilizer gum blend (xanthan and guar), instantized                                    0.10

Total:                                                                                                   100.00

Procedure: Add all ingredients to a steam-jacketed kettle set to a medium level of agitation. Bring the mixture up to a minimum temperature of 195°F and hold for a minimum of 5 minutes (or other validated process sufficient to sterilize the mix). Pump to packaging line and then aseptically fill. Ship and store at ambient temperature.

Craig Nielsen is CEO of Nielsen-Massey Vanillas, Inc., a third-generation, family-owned company that has been crafting premium vanillas and flavors for over 100 years. For more information, visit nielsenmassey.com or e-mail [email protected].