Jus

What it is¶

Jus is French for juice, and in cooking it means the concentrated cooking liquid of a meat, reduced until it is glossy and intense. A true jus lié is thickened only by the gelatin dissolved out of bones and connective tissue, sometimes with a little arrowroot; a modern restaurant jus is usually a stock reduced by two-thirds and finished with cold butter.

The distinction from gravy matters. Gravy is thickened with starch, served in quantity and meant to be poured generously. A jus is thin, concentrated, served in tablespoons, and would be unpleasant in gravy-sized portions. Both are excellent; they are not interchangeable.

History¶

The technique descends from the classical French sauce repertoire codified by Carême and Escoffier, where fonds (stocks) were reduced to make demi-glace and glace de viande. Those sauces took days.

Nouvelle cuisine in the 1970s pushed against flour-thickened sauces and brought lighter jus to prominence; by the 1990s "jus" had migrated onto British gastropub menus, sometimes attached to things that were unmistakably gravy. Purists winced. See french sauce tradition.

Typical ingredients¶

Flavour profile¶

Intense, clean and savoury with a deep roasted backbone. Because there is no starch it coats the tongue differently from gravy — a jus is silkier, sharper and much more concentrated.

What to serve it with¶

Steak, rack of lamb, duck breast, roast beef when you want something more refined than gravy, and any plate where a pool of sauce matters more than a flood. See best gravy for roast beef for when to choose jus over gravy.

The traditional recipe¶

Serves 4 · 3 hours (bones) or 30 minutes (from good stock)

You need

• 1 kg beef or veal bones, roasted until dark
• 1 onion, 1 carrot, 1 celery stick
• 2 tbsp tomato purée
• 200 ml red wine
• 2 litres water
• 2 shallots, finely chopped
• 25 g cold butter
• Thyme, bay, peppercorns

Method

1. Roast the bones at 220 °C until deeply browned, 40 minutes.
2. Transfer to a large pan with the vegetables, tomato purée, herbs and water. Simmer very gently — never boil — for 3–4 hours, skimming.
3. Strain, then reduce the liquid hard until you have about 400 ml of glossy, concentrated stock.
4. In a separate pan, soften the shallots, add the wine and reduce until syrupy.
5. Add the reduced stock and simmer to the consistency you want — it should just coat a spoon.
6. Off the heat, whisk in the cold butter a cube at a time. Do not boil it again. Season and serve in small quantity.

The quick version¶

Serves 2 · 20 minutes

You need

• 2 shallots, chopped
• 150 ml red wine
• 400 ml good beef stock
• 25 g cold butter
• Thyme

Method

1. Soften the shallots in the pan you cooked the steak in.
2. Add the wine, reduce until almost gone.
3. Add the stock and reduce by half.
4. Whisk in the cold butter off the heat, and strain.

Vegetarian and vegan versions¶

A vegetable jus is a real thing and a good one: roast onions, mushrooms, carrots and tomato hard, simmer with kombu, then reduce hard and finish with vegan butter. It will not have gelatin body, so reduce further than you think.

Common mistakes¶

Reducing a stock cube — you concentrate the salt, not the flavour, and the result is inedible. Jus needs real stock.

Boiling after the butter goes in — it splits. Butter goes in off the heat, and the sauce is served immediately.

Serving it like gravy — a jug of jus is too intense and too thin. Two spoons per plate.

Boiling the stock while making it — a hard boil emulsifies fat into the liquid and makes it cloudy. Bare simmer only.

See also¶

• reducing stock
• pan gravy
• gelatin from bones
• french sauce tradition
• beef gravy