Week 2 was the week of sauce production. It was also a short week due to the MLK holiday, so we only had class Tuesday and Wednesday. Usually we will have lecture on Mondays; Tuesdays and Wednesdays are production days. So we had a very short lecture on Tuesday and the Wednesday before to make up for missing on Monday.
In those two days we learned how to make Hollandaise, Béarnaise, Velouté, Allemande, Béchamel, Tomato, and Espagnole sauces. Hollandaise is the “Mother” sauce for the Béarnaise, and the Velouté is the “Mother” sauce for the Allemande.
I learned something very important about the Hollandaise sauce….. I don’t like it. It’s disgusting. YUCK! It tastes a lot like mayonnaise. The velouté is very similar to a gravy and it was by far my favorite sauce. The béchamel is very much like an incredibly bland Alfredo sauce. It’s white and creamy. It’s ok, better than the hollandaise, but nowhere close to my favorite.
The tomato sauce was much more complicated than I was expecting. It was infused with ham and took on that flavor a bit, so it was bit like a Bolognese sauce. SO GOOD! Chef got us some pasta so we could have some dinner. It was really good.
So now on to what I learned about sauces….
There are 3 components to every sauce: the liquid, the thickening agent, and the seasoning.
The liquid of the sauce is typically a good quality stock. However, there are other types of sauces that don’t use a stock, and these are coulis, beurre blanc, beurre rouge, flavored butters, flavored oils, salsas, relishes, and pan gravies.
There are many different types of thickening agents. The most commonly used are: roux (to which there are three types, white, blond, and brown), cornstarch (used as a slurry), arrowroot, beurre manié (kinda like a cold roux), liaison, and emulsification.
A roux is equal parts, by weight, of flour and any fat, cooked together to form a paste. The different types of roux depends on how long it is cooked. Also, it is important to remember that the darker the roux the more it breaks down as a thickening agent, so more is need to thicken a given quantity of liquid. Another thing to remember is to always add cold to hot, so add cold stock to a hot roux, or a cold roux to a hot stock. Both will need to be cooked together for about 20 min to get rid of the raw flour flavor that might remain. A good roux will be stiff, not runny or pourable.
When using cornstarch as your thickening agent, it is important to remember that your sauce (or soup) cannot be reheated because it will break down and won’t taste good. Typically when cornstarch is used, it is incorporated with the slurry (a mixture of the raw starch with a cold liquid) method to reduce lumps.
Arrowroot is very similar to cornstarch, but it is MUCH more expensive and had a cleaner finish.
Beurre manié is equal amounts, by weight of flour and soft whole butter. This is incorporated at the end.
There are 5 types of seasonings: Salt, Sweet, Acid, Bitter, and now Umami.
The purpose of a sauce is to compliment the food. A sauce is supposed to add flavor, moisture, texture, and increase the appeal to the visual taste of the food.
The criteria for judging a sauce are texture, color, body, shine, opacity, and ,most importantly, taste.
So that's just a little bit of info on sauces.
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