Deglazing Sucs

Even if you’re not into gourmet cooking, when you pan sear or roast meats, deglazing the pan can give you a quick and flavorful sauce or gravy. Of if you are in a French kitchen, particularly at the Cordon Bleu, you can produce a complicated version involving 50-60 liquid reductions and use of 30-40 chinois strainers (perhaps I exaggerate), but the French fondness for intensifying protein flavors and straining the resulting juices and sauces to silky textures contrasts with my KISS cooking approaches (keep it simple…).

Anyway to deglaze (or Déglacer) a pan, you remove (decanter) the meat and add a thin coat of a liquid, generally water, stock or wine to the pan used to cook the meat, fish or poultry. Using a scraper or spoon, you scrape at the carmelized or browned materials and protein bits stuck to the pan bottom. According to our classroom interpreter this is the “yummy bits” or “little brown bits”. Often these are referred to as the “fond”; however this is an incorrect use of fond.

In French, these are called the “sucs” (pronounced sook) from the word sucre (sugar). These bits get mostly dissolved during the scraping and swishing of the deglazing liquid. Fond actually is aromatic bouillon, stock or foundation for your sauces, juices or gravies. Any yummy bits that don’t dissolve can be strained out. So, don’t wash that pan out next time you sear or roast a protein—it’s like throwing out flavor.

P.S. this doesn't really work in a non-stick pan and for a fast summary of why it helps to know French cooking terms, check out:
http://www.nwcav.com/blog/index.php/2007/11/20/it-sucs-to-be-u-niligual/