Food Dictionary: Deglaze
"And now, we're going deglaze the pan ..." This could be one of the most common phrases on cooking shows, especially Italian shows like Everday Italian, Molto Mario, or Lidia's Italian Kitchen. You can deglase a pan with just about any liquid you have. Commonly, chefs use wine, since it adds flavor, but vinegar or even water will do the trick. Since recently coming to a happy place in my skills of making pan sauces, I have realized that deglazing is not only a necessary thing to do, it is fun and it makes for an incredibly tasty sauce.
After writing a piece on taking care of your cast iron skillet, I was inspred by Dave to do another food dictionary. Today's word is deglaze. Let's see what Epicurious says about it.
deglaze - After food (usually meat) has been saut�ed and the food and excess fat removed from the pan, deglazing is done by heating a small amount of liquid in the pan and stirring to loosen browned bits of food on the bottom. The liquid used is most often wine or stock. The resultant mixture often becomes a base for a sauce to accompany the food cooked in the pan.