Ethiopian General Sauce
By: Barnaby Dorfman
Published: Friday, December 10, 2010 - 1:02am

Ingredients




6 shallots minced
1 garlic clove minced
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
2 fresh thyme sprigs
2 fresh basil sprigs
Grated zest of 1/4 orange
1 tablespoon whole cloves crushed
1 tablespoon mace crushed
2 tablespoons freshly-ground black pepper
1/4 cup salt
1/2 cup red wine
Juice of 2 lemons
2 cups Madeira

Preparation

1 Place the shallots, garlic, almond extract, thyme, basil, zest, cloves, mace, pepper, salt, wine, lemon juice and Madeira in a slow cooker. Cook at low setting 6 hours. (Or, pour the sauce into an ovenproof dish with a tight-fitting lid. Place in a 200-degree oven for 6 hours.) 2 Strain the sauce, discarding the solids. Store the sauce in a tightly sealed container. 3 This recipe yields 3 1/2 cups. 4 Comments: General Sauce is a mild, elegant flavoring for melted butter. The original recipe called for a few somewhat rare ingredients: lemon thyme, peach leaf (easily replaced by almond extract) and long pepper, which is available at Ethiopian markets; black pepper can substitute for it. California Madeira works perfectly well in this sauce. 5 Yield: 3 1/2 cups