Gastrique is caramelized sugar,deglazed with vinegar or other sour liquids, used as asweet and sour flavoring forsauces.[1]
The gastrique is generally added to afond,reducedstock orbrown sauce. It is also used to flavor sauces such astomato sauce, savory fruit sauces, and others, such as the orange sauce forduck à l'orange.
The term is often broadened to mean any sweet and sour sauce, e.g., citrusgastrique or mangogastrique.[2] Anagrodolce is a similar sauce found inItalian cuisine.
It is different from the Belgian sauce base of the same name, which consists of vinegar,white wine,shallots,tarragon stems,bouquet garni, and peppercorns. The gastrique with this composition was already used byAuguste Escoffier, but at the end of the 19th century, Louis Védy fromBrussels turned it into a plant extract that ensures a constant level of acidity when makingbéarnaise sauce.[3]
Caramel dissolved in vinegar is used byEscoffier in 1903, with no special name, just described as "sucre cuit au caramel blond, dissous avec 1 décilitre de vinaigre" in his recipes for Sauce Romaine and Carpe à la Polonaise;[4] similarly,Prosper Montagné in 1922 just says "caramel au vinaigre",[5] and theRépertoire de la Cuisine says "caramel blond dissous au vinaigre".[6]
The namegastrique appears to have come in withnouvelle cuisine by the 1980s, defined as an "indispensable preparation used in making sauces to accompany hot creations including fruits, such as duck à l'orange."[7][8]
