Chive Blossom Vermouth

Sauces are elegant. They connect the dots. A great sauce is sop worthy. In classic sauce making shallots are cooked down with wine and aromatics. The alcohol mostly cooks off, the wine flavor boils away and we are left with an acidic allium syrup. The sauce is built on this platform. We wanted to see if we could use the wine as the sauce. We started with vermouth and added chive blossoms. Then we spun them in the rotary evaporator. The process removed the alcohol and the harsh hot notes of the chives. We were left with the aromatic herbal notes of the vermouth infused with the tamed chive blossoms. The finished product yielded 400 grams of essence. The essence is a sauce. Almost. It carries a full flavor across the palate. The vermouth and chive blossom unite to form a distinct whole. It needs something. A bit of fat, a touch of body. And these additions will allow us to differentiate and customize the sauce to the application. For our first sauce we seasoned the essence with 0.5% salt. We gave it mouthfeel with 0.1% xanthan gum, 0.5% gum arabic. We browned 113 grams of butter and added 30 grams of pistachio oil. We enriched the essence with the blend of pistachio oil and brown butter. The only debate is whether to keep the sauce broken or emulsified.