Custom Culinary Master's Touch Custom Culinary Demi-Glace Sauce Concentrate, 13.6-Ounce Jars (Pack of 6)

Compare the ingredients of this so-called "demi-glace" to any of those produced by More Than Gourmet and you'll see a big difference. Still, if you're looking for a quick, thick, dependable gravy (or a base for a sauce for Sunday's pot roast or some slow-cooked short ribs), this isn't a bad place to start. And the price is right.

The taste of the product and its contribution to your dishes is excellent. However, it must be refrigerated. That makes it a solid, hard, difficult to spoon out product when you go to use it. You certainly can’t bring it to room temp each time you want to use it because of health concerns so be prepared to chisel out what you need. Other similar products don’t have the same viscosity and remain soft when chilled.

I am a fan of cookbook author and blogger Gwen Ashley Walters, and have all three of her cookbooks, featuring recipes from chefs at guest ranches, ski retreats, and golf resorts. In her "Great Ranch Cookbook," published in 1998, she has two recipes calling for demi-glace, and references a brand of demi-glace concentrate available to consumers. The brand is still found today in many high-end grocery stores and specialty food stores across the country. Somewhere between 1998 and 2001, when she published "The Cool Mountain Cookbook," she discovered Master's Touch demi-glace concentrate, and she talked about it on her website, ([...]) under "cooking tips". She said it was the best she'd ever tasted, even better than many restaurant-made versions, but it was incredibly hard to find. Apparently it was on the store's shelf by mistake, when the deli ordered it to make a sauce and put the excess jars on the shelf for the public to buy. She suggested everyone call or write the company, demanding that it be made available to the general public. I called the company several years ago, and they referred me to a distributor who would sell it to me for a very hefty price plus shipping. I filed the information away, but didn't order.Fast forward to several weeks ago when I found it on the Amazon website. I immediately ordered some, and last night I made some red wine and shallot sauce for steaks we were serving. To make it interesting I also bought one (very small) package of the commercially available sauce to compare. The other sauce was $5 for enough demi-glace concentrate to make 1 cup. I used the entire $5 demi (3 tablespoons of concentrate) and 3 tablespoons of the Master's Touch and made two separate sauces. Upon opening each of them, I would have bet I'd have preferred the expensive alternative. It looked appetizing and the way I would have expected it to look. The Master's Touch did not look as appetizing, and I am still not sure how to describe it - like a brown whipped topping? Upon adding boiling water to it, however, it turned into a wonderful, sumptuous, rich, delicious beef gravy. I added it to my red wine and shallot mixture, which I had reduced down to a thick syrup, and reduced the whole mixture again for a fabulous sauce. To be fair, the other, more expensive demi also made a very good sauce, but it didn't go together quite as easily, and the price differential was staggering. For $28.34 I got enough to make 54 cups of sauce. To make the same amount of sauce, the commercially available demi-glace would have cost $270.I am so happy to have found the Master's Touch demi-glace on Amazon. If you enjoy cooking and are interested in restaurant-quality results, I think you will love it. I heartily recommend this product.

I bought this product thinking it was a high quality demi glace. It is an ordinary brown gravy which would be wonderful if served in a high school cafeteria or budget restaurant. There is a reason it is well priced. You get what you pay for. Be sure you know what you are ordering before you buy this.

Not impressed.

Love the convenience and richness of flavor. I use it for gravies, sauces and soup. Not salty like bullion.

Have'nt really figured it out yet.

Great stuff. No kitchen should be w/o it. I use it all the time. Glad I bought 5.