Sweet-and-Sour Brown Sauces Made with Fruit

The best-known fruit sauce is orange sauce for duck, but fruit-based brown sauces are good with all sorts of game, such as deer and hare. There are several approaches to serving meat with fruit and fruit sauce. For example, when flavoring a sauce with a citrus fruit, the juice of the fruit can be used, but a better source of flavor is the zest—the thin, shiny colored part of the rind—which is usually blanched first to eliminate bitterness. Berries can be lightly cooked in the appropriate broth and the broth reduced and used in the sauce. Or, fruits such as apples can be cooked separately from the meat and served with the meat, while the apple or other fruit character is added directly to the meat through the addition of a brandy or liqueur made from the fruit, such as Calvados (apple brandy) for apples, Grand Marnier for oranges, and kirsch (dry, clear, cherry brandy) for cherries.