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The first essential component of great sauces is the stock. Traditional French cuisine often utilizes veal bones, but beef bones serve as an affordable and flavorful substitute. When sourcing meat bones, focus on those rich in connective tissue, such as joints and vertebrae, which provide the gelatin necessary for a thicker sauce.
For a proper beef stock, a combination of meaty bones and collagen-rich joints is recommended. Pig trotters, while no longer common in many restaurants, can enrich the stock further. As a rule of thumb, one kilogram of bones yields about one liter of stock, so it's advisable to prepare stock in larger batches to save time.