MOTHER SAUCES
If you turn to the section on “sauce” in the great French dictionary (the bible, really) of classic French cuisine, “Larousse Gastronomique” (English version, Crown, 1988), there’s a chart midway through the account, just before the wee recipes that make the entities in the Larousse so distinctive, that lists which sauce the French consider best with, say, eggs or poultry or vegetables.
The number of sauces runs into the hundreds: “Albufera, allemande, aurore, avocado, banquière, bretonne, chervil, Chantilly, chaud-froid (white), Chivry, cream, curry . . .”—and that’s merely the ABCs for the 29 sauces recommended for (merely!) “poached or shallow-fried” poultry. (There are even more sauces recommended for braised, sauteed, roast or grilled poultry, not to mention separate sauce suggestions for duck and goose.)
And you thought a country “that has 365 cheeses is ungovernable,” as de Gaulle was to have said (but, in truth, didn’t), try one with a thousand sauces.
Mon Dieu.
In the 1800s, Antonin Carême, along with Auguste Escoffier, one of the two revered pillars of “grande cuisine,” tried to govern this burgeoning broth of sauces by categorizing them into what came to be called the five (or six—no one could agree to put a lid on it!) “Mother Sauces.”
Some, we are familiar with: mayonnaise, hollandaise, béchamel, to name three.
But the idea was that the mother sauces gave birth to sauces in their likeness. For example, béarnaise was a progeny of hollandaise; Mornay sauce, of béchamel (simply, béchamel with cheese).
Few hew today to these basic categories that we inherited from Carême and Escoffier, although students of the culinary arts in the western hemisphere still learn some of them in their curriculum.
But the idea is a good and helpful one: that a simple sauce is delivered of another slightly less simple sauce (except for flavorful twists or additions), or a sauce of very close approximation, or a sauce that swipes Mom’s cool idea and runs with it.
However, we live, even in the west’s kitchens, much beyond France. Apart from the classic French mother sauces, there is a world of other sauces, from many non-French countries.
Here are some modern “mom’s sauces,” including, to my way of tasting still a winner, the traditional hollandaise.
Hollandaise
Hollandaise is one of the great mother sauces, but is so often avoided because it is thought that it is tedious and difficult to make. The result, both too often and too sadly, are cooks’ purchases of prepackaged—or worse, canned or jarred—hollandaise sauces. “Just add melted butter,” the package might say.
Avoid made-ahead hollandaise and prepare your own with this foolproof method. It’s easy and quick and results in a creamy, silken sauce to use on grilled, roasted or steamed asparagus—perfect for this time of year—or on eggs Benedict, another dish avoided by the home cook because they are thought too difficult to prepare. Not so, especially this way.
(Well-appreciated in the United States with grilled steaks, béarnaise sauce is merely hollandaise to which a reduction of white wine and/or wine vinegar, minced shallots and tarragon leaves has been added.)
RECIPE: Foolproof Hollandaise Sauce
From J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, “The Food Lab”; makes about 1 cup.
Ingredients
3 large egg yolks, room temperature
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon hot water
1/2 pound or 2 sticks unsalted butter, cut up in rough tablespoon-sized chunks
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Kosher salt
Directions
Add the egg yolks, lemon juice and hot water into a blender or food processor and blend on medium until smooth, about 10 seconds. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat until butter just begins to bubble and registers between 180-190F on an instant-read thermometer.
With the blender running on medium speed, slowly drizzle in the butter over the course of 1 minute, stopping to scrape down the sides of the blender if necessary, leaving behind the thin layer of whitish solids in the bottom of the pan (discard them). The sauce should be smooth, with the consistency of thick cream. Season with the pepper and salt.
Transfer to a serving container or small saucepan, cover and keep in a warm spot not directly over heat) until ready to serve.
Blond and brown roux
At its most basic, a roux (pronounced “roo” and spelled “roux” in both its singular and plural forms) is a very old technique that blends equal measures of a fat (usually but not always butter) and flour. The flour particles expand in the presence of moisture and thicken (first, if present in the fat—yay, butter—then in whatever liquid is chosen as the sauce’s underlying flavor: meat broth, milk, wine, and the like.
The change in color of a roux depends on how long it is cooked, from a few minutes (blond) to as long as 20-45 minutes (from brown to very dark or even black).
Blond roux is basis for other well-known “mother sauces” such as béchamel (made with milk or light cream and used in both French and Italian cooking); velouté or white sauce (made with chicken or fish stock and used throughout western cooking as the basis for chowders or lighter sauces); with milk or stock and cheese (known as “sauce Mornay,” for a preparation of, say, mac’ ‘n’ cheese); or as the basis of many Cajun dishes such as étouffée.
Seasonings for light roux and its sauces include herbs or spices such as thyme, nutmeg or red chili flakes; salt and pepper (white pepper is better here than black).
Brown roux is a base for sauces for dishes such as chicken pot pie or beef gravy or preparations of stews such beef burgundy (boeuf bourgignon in French); and as the basis for Cajun dishes such as gumbo.
Seasonings for darker roux include herbs or spices such as herbes de Provence, bay leaf or red chili flakes; salt and freshly ground black pepper.
The terms “blond” and “brown” indicate merely a spectrum of color for the final roux, from very light sandy color, to tawny, on to the color of peanut butter, then caramel, then to the hue of the top of flan or creme brulee, finishing with a chocolate-brown, that itself can range from milk to dark chocolate color.
Because the depth of color of roux is due to the length of time it is cooked, lighter roux often use butter as the cooking fat (because it will not discolor or darken quickly), and the darker roux, vegetable oil or clarified butter because of their higher smoke point over the heat of the stove.
Watch a video here on How to Make a Roux.
RECIPE: Blond roux
Makes a scant cup of roux, enough as base for 7-8 cups total sauce
Ingredients
1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter or clarified butter
1/2 cup flour
Directions
In a non-reactive pan, melt butter. When foam subsides, whisk in flour. Continue whisking for 5-7 minutes or until the roux is a light, sandy color. Use this roux in additional sauces (white sauce, bechamel, Mornay, chicken stock veloute, etc).
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RECIPE: Béchamel
To every 1/2 cup of blond or white roux add:
4 cups heated whole milk or light cream
1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons salt, to taste
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg, to taste
When the roux is just made, whisk in the heated milk or cream 1 cup at a time, whisking non-stop until sauce is smooth. (The first cup added may sputter and spit, so use caution.) Bring to slow boil, cook, stirring constantly and slowly, for about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and season to taste with salt and nutmeg. Use forthwith or continue as base for other sauce. Recipe may be doubled easily.
RECIPE: Mornay (cheese sauce)
To every 4 cups béchamel, melt in 1 pound (about 4 cups) grated cheese(s), American cheddar especially or other soft, moisture-rich cheese. Gruyère, Comté, and Swiss also work. Drier cheeses such as Parmigiano-Reggiano are fine but should not be the exclusive cheese, but rather added to moister cheeses.
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RECIPE: Brown roux
Makes a scant cup of roux, enough as base for 7-8 cups total sauce
Ingredients
1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter or clarified butter
1/2 cup flour
Directions
In a non-reactive pan, melt butter. When foam subsides, whisk in flour. Continue whisking for up to 20-30 minutes on a very slow flame until the roux goes from a light tawny to the color of peanut butter or dark chocolate (depending on its eventual use).
Sauces based in seeds, grains, nuts, or bread
This just in: rivers of sauces from around the world are not constructed of cream and butter. What a concept.
One large group is sauces thickened, not with flour, but with ground seeds, or grains, or nuts, or bread crumbs .
Examples include sauces such as pesto (Italy, Liguria, thickened with pine nuts); hummus (Middle East, a thick “sauce” made of chickpeas); and mole (Central America, a sauce ranging in color from yellow to light green, through a series of reds to black, thickened with seeds such as those from sunflower or pumpkin).
A well known sauce thickened with any of several nuts—piñons, almonds or filberts (and, often enough, with the addition of bread crumbs) is romesco sauce, from the Catalan name meaning “Roman’ and a specialty of northeastern Spain or Tarragona, where it is served with fish.
It is a pungent mix of roasted red peppers, chili pepper, ground-up nuts and bread, and olive oil. Serve it with grilled fish this summer, or use it as a dip for vegetables or pita chips or as a topping for a Spanish version of bruschetta.
RECIPE: Romesco Sauce
From Karen Adler and Judith Fertig, “The Gardener and the Grill” (Running Press, 2012)
Ingredients
1/2 cup toasted slivered almonds
2 grill-roasted red bell peppers or jarred roasted red bell peppers, roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 slice white bread (crust removed), toasted and crumbled
1 tablespoon roughly chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Directions
In a food processor, grind the almonds. Add roasted peppers, garlic, bread, parsley and hot pepper flakes. Blend until it becomes a paste. Add the vinegar and pulse to blend. With the motor running, gradually pour the olive oil through the feed tube in a steady stream until the mixture thickens like mayonnaise. Season to taste with salt and black pepper.