How to Make. Gourmet. Sauces. at Home. Page 2

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2 Gourmet How to Make Sauces at Home Page 2

3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction The History of Sauces Basic Sauce Ingredients Common Sauce Terms and Defintions Tips for Buying Great Sauce Pots and Pans Five Most Commonly Used White Sauces A Few More Words ABout Béchamel Five Most Commonly Used Brown Sauces Five Most Common Butter-Based Sauces Five Most Commonly Used Red Sauces Five Most Commonly Used Dessert Sauces Five Most Commonly Used Emulsified Sauces Ten Tips from Expert Chefs on Making Great Sauces 1. Use high quality ingredients 2. Buy Demi-Glace and Stock Instead of Making It Yourself 3. Use the Right Equipment 4. Get Everything Ready Before You Start 5. Use a Wooden Spoon to Tell if You Reduction is Ready 6. A Great Sauce Comes from a Great Start 7. Check the Thickness of the Sauce Often 8. A Sauce Should Not Have Lumps 9. Sauces Take Time 10. Don t Use Non-stick Pans for Sauces Easy to Make American Sauces Barbecue Sauce Barbecue Sauces in Other Types of Cuisine Seafood Sauces Five Ingredients to Keep in the Kitchen to Make Seafood Sauces Salad Dressings Easy to Make Asian Sauces Five Ingredients You Should Have in the Kitchen to Make Asian Sauces The Five French mother Sauces Five Ingredients You Should Have in the Kitchen to Make French Sauces Easy to Make English Sauces Five Ingredients You Should Have in the Kitchen to Make English Sauces Easy to Make Eastern European Sauces Five Ingredients You Should Have in the Kitchen to Make Eastern European Sauces Easy to Make Indian Sauces Five Ingredients You Should Have in the Kitchen to Make Indian Sauces Easy to Make Italian Sauces Five Ingredients You Should Have in the Kitchen to Make Italian Sauces Easy to Make Middle Eastern and North African Sauces Five Ingredients You Should Have in the Kitchen to Make Middle Eastern and North African Sauces Page 3

4 Easy to Make Spanish Sauces Five Ingredients You Should Have in the Kitchen to Make Spanish Sauces Fruit Sauces and Syrups Five Ways to Use Fruit Sauces and Syrups to Dress up Ordinary Meals Five Ways to Use Sauces Everyday Where to Find the Best Ingredients for Your Homemade Sauces Ways to Save Money Buying Sauce Ingredients Conclusion Page 4

5 How to Make Gourmet Sauces at Home Introduction Thick, rich sauces are one of the delights of really great food. Have you ever gone to a restaurant and fallen in love with one of the great gourmet sauces that the chef prepared? Almost everyone has at some point or another. Sauces can make an ordinary dish an instant gourmet classic. Learning to make thick, rich, flavorful sauces is easier than you might think, and if you have an innate love of cooking and of gourmet food you can learn how to make your favorite restaurant style sauces at home for a lot less money than you d pay to eat out everyday. Cooking gourmet sauces at home is practical too. With money getting tighter for a lot of families one place that most people try to cut back on is food. But no one wants to eat the same boring food day after day. You can use gourmet style sauces prepared by you at home to spice up the same old meals or revive leftovers so that you can still stick to your food budget without getting bored with your meals. For example, if your favorite grocery store is having a sale on chicken breasts you can stock up while they re on sale and prepare chicken three or four days of the week for dinner. Using sauces and spices you can create a different meal every time so that your family won t be complaining about eating chicken for dinner yet again. Some sauces do require exotic or rare ingredients that can be costly but most of time you can whip up some great, flavorful sauces with a minimum of ingredients. One of the great benefits of cooking with sauces is that you can use whatever ingredients you already have on hand to create a unique sauce to dress up almost any meal. Using sauces can be a cheap and creative way to vary your meals at home and get your favorite restaurant style food without having to pay restaurant prices. Learning to make great sauces at home is something that you will have to practice at first, and you might have to invest in some better quality cooking supplies and update the ingredients that you keep on hand in your kitchen, but if you take the time to learn some of the best restaurant style sauce making techniques and keep some basic ingredients on hand then you will be able to whip up a tasty gourmet dinner for a fraction of the price of a restaurant meal which will save you money and be a lot healthier for your and your family. The History of Sauces Sauces have been documented as being used as far back as Roman times, and probably were used much earlier than that. Sauces originally were a way for ancient people to disguise the taste of food that was old or might not have been terribly fresh and also to preserve food that was at risk of going bad. Using sauces was also a way to create some variety in the ancient diet and to show off the wealth of the person serving the meal. Since spices and flavorings were extremely expensive and had to be imported to most locations from vast distances a sauce full of exotic spices served on a meal would show the people eating the meal that the person serving the meal had a lot of money. Another reason that many cultures began using sauces is to tenderize toughened or preserved meat. In the days before refrigeration many different cultures would salt or dry their meat once it was killed and cleaned as a way of preserving it. Because the preservation process would dry the meat almost to a jerky like texture that was very dry and leathery sauces were used to add moisture and make the meat easier to eat as well to make it more Page 5

6 flavorful and to disguise the taste. Almost every geographical area and culture has their own sauces that have become an integral part of that cooking of that region or nationality. Usually these sauces are made of ingredients that are easy to find within that area of the world. Some of the sauces are very simple and are made up of just a simple base and one or two flavorings like some of the fish sauces of Southeast Asia that are usually made of fermented fish and a few spices. Some other sauces though can be very time consuming and complicated to make like some of the rich Indian curry sauces that can have 20 or more spices and ingredients in just one sauce. Even though almost every culture has some type of sauce that it claims as its own the French are the most renowned for making sauces. French cooking is very focused on sauces and you can use the five most basic styles of French sauces to make sauces that compliment almost any type of food from salads to main courses to desserts. When you learn to make sauces you re following in a great tradition that has been passed down from generation to generation. One of the most fun aspects of making sauces is that it s so easy to put your own unique spin on a classic sauce. How many unique sauces does your family have? Chances are good that you have more than you think. How about that special gravy that your grandmother makes for Thanksgiving? Or the special glaze for the Christmas ham or secret family spaghetti sauce? The history of sauces can tell the story of your own family, and you can start your own traditions by creating your own unique sauces for your family. Basic Sauce Ingredients There are a few different types of basic sauces. In order to make the most basic sauces you need to start with a few key ingredients. Remember that when you re making a sauce the ingredients can make or break the taste of the sauce so use the best quality ingredients you can afford. It s a good idea to always keep these ingredients in your kitchen so that you can create a great sauce at a moment s notice without having to run to the store to get any special supplies: Stock The best stock is stock that you make yourself but if you don t have the time to create your own fresh stock every few days then using pre-made stock is fine. Try to get organic or fresh stock whenever possible. There are lots of restaurants that sell their own fresh stock so if there is a local restaurant that you love ask them if they sell stock and keep some on hand to make your own sauces. Flour Flour is just one of those ingredients that you should always have in the pantry. Cream and milk White sauces will usually have a base of cream or milk. If you want to make sauces that are thicker use real cream, but if you re trying to cut down on calories and fat then use 2% milk instead. Don t use skim or fat free milk because those can interfere with the taste of the sauce but 2% milk will still give you the kind of creamy sauce base that you need while cutting out some of the fat and calories. Tomato paste Fresh tomatoes make the best sauces, but if tomatoes aren t in season or if you can t afford to always keep fresh tomatoes in the house using canned tomato paste is a good alternative. Just make sure you use a paste that is just tomatoes with no other additives. Tomato paste is a very cheap and fast base to use to create a really rich tomato sauce that you can use on hundreds of different dishes from pizza to meat. Oil For lighter sauces you will need to have some oil on hand. Olive oil is the best oil to keep around. Buy a high quality olive oil even though olive oil can be expensive. You and your family will definitely be able to taste the difference in quality between a high end olive oil and a cheap olive oil. Butter- For white sauces and cheese sauces you ll definitely need to have some butter in the fridge. Unless you Page 6

7 have a dairy sensitivity or lactose intolerance and have to use margarine you should always use real butter. Real butter can be pricey compared to margarine but there is a real difference in the taste of a sauce made with butter compared to a sauce made with margarine. Butter freezes well so try to stock up when your favorite grocery store has a sale on real butter to cut the cost a little bit. Common Sauce Terms and Defintions There are so many different types of sauces and so many ways to make sauces that it can be confusing for people that aren t professional chefs to keep track of all the different terms associated with sauces. Here is a brief overview of the most commonly used sauce terms and what they mean so that when you see or hear these terms you won t be confused: Brown Sauce Brown sauces are also sometimes called espangnole. Brown sauces are made from stock and are usually the bases for almost other types of sauces. Brown sauces are often used for meat dishes. White Sauce White sauces may or may not contain cream or milk. Usually they do contain flour and at least a little stock. They may also have cheese added to them. Red Sauce Red sauces are almost always tomato based, although sometimes a Red sauce can refer to a curry or chili based sauce. Emulsion Emulsion sauces are made from combining ingredients that normally aren t combined to make a very thick cream sauce. Mayonnaise is a good example of an emulsion sauce. Hollandaise sauce is also an example of an emulsified sauce. Roux Roux is a mixture of flour and fat mixed together. Roux can be used with stock or Brown sauces to create a new sauce or Roux can be used on its own as a basic type of sauce. Demi-glace A Demi-glace is a mixture of stock and brown sauce, sometimes mixed with other ingredients, that is reduced to form a very thick, concentrated sauce. Demi-glace can be used as a sauce by itself or used as the base for another sauce. Demi-glace is the most commonly used sauce and many chefs spend years becoming experts at making their own version of a Demi-glace Béchamel Béchamel is a special type of white sauce that is made from scalded milk and white flour. Béchamel is the most basic type of white sauce and is a very commonly used base for cheese and milk sauces. Reduction In cooking to reduce something means to simmer it slowly until the water or liquid evaporates. A reduction sauce is a sauce made by simmering a basic sauce until about half of the liquid has been evaporated which leaves a thick and more flavorful sauce. Tips for Buying Great Sauce Pots and Pans Depending on what cooking equipment you already have at home you might need to invest in a new set of pots and pans in order to make great sauces at home. Even though it might seem kind of counterproductive to spend money on new pots and pans and other equipment in the long run you ll save money by buying high quality cooking equipment and ingredients that you can use to cook at home. The food that you make will taste better when it s prepared in high quality pots and pans and the better quality pots and pans will stand up better to being used a lot than cheap pots and pans. Here are some tips to help you pick out high quality sauce pots and pans, no matter what your budget is. Page 7

8 Choose pots and pans made from a conductive material. You don t need to spend a fortune on professional quality pots and pans but you should choose pots and pans that are made from a conductive material like copper or stainless steel. Stainless steel pots and pans are a very affordable choice for most at home chefs. Just make sure that the stainless steel pots and pans you get have an aluminum or copper core and an aluminum or copper disc at the bottom. This will make sure that your sauces heat evenly. For the best sauces don t get nonstick pans. Most at home chefs like nonstick pans because they are the most versatile and can be used for all kinds of cooking but if you want to make the best sauces possible you shouldn t use non stick pans. If you like the ease and convenience of using non stick pans for other types of cooking you should buy another set of pans, ones that aren t nonstick, for making sauces. Make sure the handles of the pots and pans you choose stay cool. There s nothing worse than reaching for a pot without a pot holder and finding out that the pot handle isn t one that stays cool. Double check to make sure that the pots you buy have non conductive handles before you buy them. Buy several different types of saucepans. Most general use saucepans have straight up and down sides, but there are also several kinds of specialized sauce pans that are designed for making different types of sauces. Windsor pans have flared bottoms that heat more of the sauce. Windsor pans are used primarily for making reductions. Sauceriers are specialized saucepans that have wider, more rounded bottoms than most traditional pans. These are used mostly for making very thick sauces like emulsified sauces or pudding style sauces. It s a good idea to have several of each kind of sauce pan on hand so that you have the right tools to make any kind of sauce. Five Most Commonly Used White Sauces White sauces can be used to make everything from macaroni and cheese to curries and thick, heavily spiced meat sauces. A good basic white sauce can be the start of a great meal. White sauces are a nice alternative to traditional red sauces for pasta. White sauces are fairly easy to make and very easy to customize. A basic white sauce and some spices or a little cheese can be used with almost any dish. Because white sauces often contain cream, milk or butter they can be higher in calories and fat than some other types of sauces. If you are concerned about counting calories or fat grams then you can substitute low fat milk or butter for some sauce recipes but since these sauces are supposed to be thick and creamy cutting out the fat might make them less flavorful. These are the five most commonly used white sauces. Once you know how to make these you can whip up a gourmet white sauce to accompany almost any meal. Béchamel A basic Béchamel sauce of scalded milk, white flour and butter can be the beginning of a great pasta sauce. Add some herbs and spices or a fragrant cheese to make gourmet Macaroni and Cheese that will rival what you d get at your favorite restaurant. Alfredo Rich Alfredo sauce is made with heavy cream, Parmesan cheese and butter. Most often this sauce is used on pasta but it can be used on other dishes as well or it can be used as the base for a very rich soup. Yogurt Yogurt sauces are common in the Middle East and North Africa. Most often yogurt sauces are just yogurt mixed with fragrant spices and sometimes cream. Indian cuisine also uses yogurt as a base for some very hot curry dishes. Remoulade Remoulade is a very thick sauce that has a consistency like tartar sauce. Often it s served plain with Page 8

9 fish dishes, or it can sometimes be spiced with curry mixes or Creole seasonings to be used in Creole cooking. Remoulade is a very popular sauce in Northern Europe and is used in a lot of traditional Northern European dishes. In some European countries Remoulade is used as a condiment on French fries or on hot dogs and is sometimes used as a soup base or salad dressing as well. Veloute Veloute is one of the most basic French sauces. Veloute is a mixture of stock, white flour and butter. Even though the sauce is white since it contains stock it s often paired with meat dishes, especially game. Veloute is a nice alternative to traditional brown sauces for main courses that involve a lot of meat. Because Veloute is the base for many French sauces if you are a fan of French cooking it s a good idea to find a recipe that you like for Veloute and perfect it because you ll be using it a lot if you plan to focus on French cuisine. A Few More Words ABout Béchamel Béchamel is one of the four mother sauces of French cooking. It is the base sauce for many of the white sauces that get made in many different types of cuisine. The most often used ingredients for a Béchamel sauce are heavy cream, white roux, butter, garlic, onions, salt, and clove. Béchamel is the foundation for sauces like Mornay, natua, crème, mustard and many types of cheese sauces including the Cheddar sauce that is often used to make macaroni and cheese. The Italian style of Béchamel is a reduction of heavy cream, seasonings, and veal stock. Lasagna and stuffed shells are both usually made with a type of béchamel and Italian béchamel with a little parmesan cheese is a common pasta sauce in Italian cooking. Five Most Commonly Used Brown Sauces Brown sauces are usually used as the base of gravy and other sauces that will end up being used in meat dishes or as a base for hearty meat soups. Often brown sauces have a thick meat base that comes from heavy reduction of veal, chicken or beef stock. Brown sauces are the most commonly used sauces around the world and are used on everything from vegetables to game. Brown sauces can be time consuming to make because they often have a lot of ingredients that need to cooked down to basic components and then simmered for hours, sometimes even for days depending on how much meat is used to make the stock. A lot of cooks buy brown sauce bases like Demi-glace from local restaurants or from their favorite gourmet food store because they don t have time to make their own and then they just add other ingredients to make a hearty brown sauce. Here are the five most commonly used brown sauces from cuisines around the world: Demi-glace Demi-glace is most often used as the base for other brown sauces. It s usually a mixture of one part veal, chicken or beef stock and two parts espagnole that is then reduced to about half of its original volume to make a very thick, very fragrant meat sauce. Demi-glace is used by many fine restaurants to cook basic cuts to meat to give them more flavor. Chateaubriand Chateaubriand sauce was originally made to accompany Chateaubriand, a particular kind of roast dish. But these days chefs use the Chateaubriand sauce on many different dishes. Chateaubriand sauce is a mixture of veal gravy, white wine, garlic, shallots, and other spices to make a very spicy, fragrant soup like sauce that is great on beef and veal dishes. Peanut Sauce Peanut sauce is most often found in Asian and Thai cooking but it can also be found frequently in Middle Easter and European cooking, especially Northern European cuisine. Peanut sauce is very popular on chicken and chicken kebobs. Peanut sauce is one of the few brown sauces not made primarily of meat stock. Peanut sauce is made of peanut butter, olive oil, soy sauce, coconut milk and lots of spices like ginger and chili. Page 9

10 Peanut sauces are a fun way to spice up plain chicken dishes. Oyster Sauce Oyster sauce is most often used in Asian cooking. It s a staple of Asian cuisine that is used for stir frying or cooking vegetables and beef. Oyster sauce is made of oysters, brine, and sometimes mushrooms or mushroom sauce. It has a viscous oil-like texture and is very inexpensive to buy so most people buy it from an Asian market instead of making their own although you can make your own at home if you have a lot of time on your hands. Mushroom Sauce Mushroom sauce is a good basic brown sauce that you can use to add flavor and visual interest to almost any dish. If you have small kids and you want to make interesting meals that they will eat Mushroom sauce is a good sauce to add because it s not terribly spicy but it does add a nice flavor to beef, pork chops and other common everyday dinner dishes. Basic mushroom sauce is usually made with a beef stock, red wine, shallots, and some garlic. Five Most Common Butter-Based Sauces Butter sauces can be found in almost any type of cuisine. A simple butter sauce can be used to marinate meat, add some flavor to vegetables, season a dessert, tossed with pasta or used as a base for a thick and creamy white soup. Once you have perfected the recipe for a basic butter sauce you can whip up an elegant meal very quickly with just a basic butter sauce and some fresh lemon or fresh garlic to sauté meat or vegetables with. You can also create some very rich sauces for fancier meals. Here are the most commonly used types of butter sauces: Basic Butter Sauce Every chef has his or her own variation of a basic butter sauce. Whether you re frying up some fish for dinner or making some macaroni and cheese for the kids lunch knowing how to make a basic butter sauce is one skill that you will be glad you have. All you need to make a basic butter sauce is of course butter, some flour, eggs and cream. Once you have found a basic butter sauce recipe that you like you can season it with spices or leave it plain. Satay Sauce Satay is a type of dish that is known in practically every culture by a different name. Satay is basically chunks of meat on a stick that are grilled or barbequed and then dipped into a sauce. In Middle Eastern cuisine satay is known as kebobs. In Japanese cuisine satay is known as yakitori. Satay is extremely popular in Southeast Asian and Thai cooking. A peanut sauce can be used for Thai satay but a butter based sauce, usually with garlic and olive oil, is also used quite frequently. For people with peanut allergies a butter satay sauce is a good alternative. Beurre Blanc Sauce Beurre Blanc, which translated means White Butter sauce is a variation of a Hollandaise sauce that was discovered by a French chef by accident. Luckily it was a tasty accident and the Beurre Blanc became one of the five core French cooking sauces. Beurre Blanc is made from butter and white wine, or white vinegar, shallots and stock. It s used quite frequently on pasta dishes or on fish. Some chefs add heavy cream to the sauce in order to stabilize the butter and vinegar and prevent separation but that is a point of contention in the culinary world. Many chefs say that any chef that adds cream to a Beurre Blanc sauce isn t really making a true Beurre Black sauce. Garlic Butter Sauce Garlic Butter Sauce is a variation of a simple butter sauce but it deserves a mention as one of the most popular types of butter sauce since this sauce is on the menu at practically every restaurant that serves pasta. This is the ideal sauce to toss with pasta or you can add some cheese to it and use it to make a fragrant and delicious macaroni and cheese. To make a Garlic Butter sauce you need some high quality butter, Page 10

11 fresh garlic, a little flour, and some basil and oregano to give it a nice balance. You can also add just a touch of cream or use a soft cheese to give it a thick texture. Drawn Butter Sauce This sauce was very commonly used in British cooking in the 18 th and the early 19 th centuries. It s an extremely light sauce. It s perfect for vegetables, especially as a light seasoning for cooked vegetables like asparagus. To make drawn butter sauce all you need is some high quality butter, flour, milk and seasonings. You can season it to taste and to match whatever you re serving it with although most chefs add a dash of lemon juice to Drawn Butter sauce to give it an even lighter taste. Drawn Butter sauce is great when used as a fish sauce but is a little too light for game or beef. Five Most Commonly Used Red Sauces Usually when people think of red sauces they immediately think of tomato based Italian pasta sauces like Marinara, but many other cultures use the tomato as a staple of their cuisine as well. Indian red curries are tomato based and there are several fiery Mexican sauces that use the tomato as a base. Louisiana French Creole cooking also has a lot of tomato based red sauces. When you want to make a red sauce, whether it s to go on some pasta or to use up some fresh tomatoes from the garden, here are some great red sauces you can try: Marinara Sauce Marinara sauce isn t indigenous to Italy. The root of the word Marinara comes from the Italian word for sailor. Loosely translated Marinara means of the sailors and it got its name from the Spanish sailors that first brought tomatoes to Italy. Marinara is similar to a basic red tomato sauce of tomatoes and flour but it s much spicier than traditional plain red sauce and often contains olive oil, vinegar or wine, and basil and oregano in addition to other spices. Red Curry Sauce Indian and Southeast Asian cooking is synonymous with curries. Called masala the spice mixes from these countries are often intense and feature spices that can t be found anywhere else. Often a tomato and yogurt sauce is the base for these strikingly spicy curries. Keeping a jar of curry spice in your kitchen will make it easier to make Red Curry Sauce at home because all the spices that you ll need will already be mixed together in that one bottle. A simple mashed tomato sauce with curry spices is a very simple to prepare and low calorie way to warm up on a very cold day. Salsa People usually think of Salsa as a condiment but technically it s a sauce. Fresh salsa is a wonderful healthy way to celebrate summer and get some vegetables into your diet. Salsa is really just chunks of fresh vegetables mixed with a basic tomato sauce and spices. It s a simple and delicious healthy sauce that you can eat with chips or pour on pasta. Piquante Piquante is a Louisiana Creole sauce that is eaten all the time with fresh game or with seafood. The sauce is usually served over white rice, or white rice with beans, and not usually served on the meat itself. Piquante Sauce consists of tomatoes that have been simmered with olive oil and then heavily spiced with Creole seasonings. Piquante is not as hot as some Indian curries, although it s close in many cases. Tomato Gravy Tomato gravy is a uniquely American sauce that is usually a staple food in poor rural homes. It s also delicious. Tomatoes are often a crop that families can easily grow so they have a lot of them and they will make a lot of variations of red sauces to use up fresh tomatoes or to can for the winter. Most often tomato gravy is served over biscuits, eggs, or toast. Tomato gravy is simple to make. Cook some flour and fat together and then simmer that mixture with some fresh tomatoes and you ve got tomato gravy. Season to taste. Tomato gravy is also a great base for a thick and hearty tomato soup. Page 11

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