Sauces |
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| The Major Sauce Groups |
| By REGINA SCHRAMBLING, October 10, 2001 |
| Sauce is like success: it has many mothers. I've always kept things straight through the five basic sauces I learned at the New York Restaurant School. |
| Brown sauce, made from meat stock and a dark roux made from flour and butter cooked together until they brown, is the base for sauces like bordelaise, which is enriched with red wine, shallots and beef marrow; espagnole, enhanced with onion, celery, carrots, tomatoes and bay leaf; and demi-glace, in which the sauce or stock is reduced almost to a syrup. |
| Veloute is made from chicken or fish stock and thickened with a blond roux. This is almost never used on its own, but as the foundation for sauce suprOOme, which features the addition of cream (and is some chefs' secret addition to creamed spinach); and vin blanc, with cream and white wine contributing flavor. More often today the same effect is achieved simply by boiling down heavy cream with flavorings like coarse-grain mustard, fresh sorrel or green peppercorns. |
| Bechamel is the French translation of gravy: butter or other fat is cooked with flour, and the resulting paste is lightened with milk to make a rich sauce that is almost pourable. Add grated GruyFFre or Cheddar and you have a sauce Mornay to spread over vegetables or lobster in a gratin. With sauteed onions, the sauce becomes soubise. |
| Tomato sauce is just what it sounds like: tomato puree simmered with fat and stock and flavored with sugar and basil. To convert it into Milanaise sauce to accompany dishes like veal, the cook adds demi-glace, chopped prosciutto, sauteed mushrooms and butter. |
| Hollandaise is the most familiar of classic French mother sauces, a stalwart of brunch menus everywhere. The foundation of egg yolks and lemon juice cooked through the addition of hot clarified butter can be built on to make bearnaise, incorporating a reduction of tarragon and vinegar; or choron, with tomato puree; or Maltaise, with orange juice and zest. Mousseline is another variation: hollandaise lightened with whipped cream. |
| Mayonnaise was not considered a mother sauce when I was in school, but it is the basis of many others, including remoulade. For sauce gribiche, it is not made the usual way, with raw egg yolks, but with hard-cooked eggs mixed almost to creaminess in a vinaigrette. Ravigote is a similar sauce, made with capers and cornichons and herbs, but without the eggs. |