Cherry Sauce for Meat

Cooking method

1. Step 1:

   

   How do you make cherry sauce for meat? Gather the ingredients. Frozen cherries are the easiest to use — they're already pitted and all the juices are sealed in. If you're using fresh cherries, pit them and, if you can, save the juice they release; you'll want it for the sauce.

2. Step 2:

   

   Pour the wine into a saucepan and set it over medium heat, but don't let it boil. Which wine should you use? It should be a red, and the more aromatic it is, the tastier the sauce. I'm using a Moldovan Isabella-grape wine, which is perfect for this. If you want a more tart sauce, go with a dry red.

3. Step 3:

   

   Stir the starch into cold water until smooth, with no lumps. You can use cornstarch in place of potato starch, but use a bit more — 1 tablespoon — since cornstarch is weaker. What water should you use? Filtered, bottled, or cooled boiled water is best.

4. Step 4:

   

   Stirring constantly, pour the dissolved starch into the wine. The wine shouldn't be boiling, or lumps will form. In general, alcohol-based sauces should be kept just below a simmer rather than boiled — that way the alcohol doesn't cook off too fast and lose its character. Cook the sauce, stirring, over low heat until it thickens slightly. Go by the consistency, since every stove is different.

5. Step 5:

   

   Then add the frozen cherries and the sugar. Stir and cook until the sugar dissolves, about 3 minutes or a little less, depending on your stove. At first the sauce will look scarlet and cloudy from the starch, but as it thickens the starch dissolves and takes on the color of the wine and cherry juice.

6. Step 6:

   

   Stir a pat of butter into the sauce until it's fully blended in, with no oily streaks left on the surface. The butter adds gloss and a velvety finish.

7. Step 7:

   

   Keep cooking the sauce, stirring, for about 5 more minutes, until all the cherries have softened and the sauce turns bright red with no cloudiness. You can adjust the final consistency to taste — as written, it's medium-thick, but you can cook it longer to thicken it further. For a smooth sauce with no fruit pieces, blend it with an immersion blender before serving.

8. Step 8:

   

   Pour the finished sauce into a gravy boat and serve. Enjoy!