"If I were dying, these two words would probably be the last thing I said." -Chef Bruno
And now an index by which to measure how your sauce tasted:
Spat on the floor --- apologize profusely, then do your best to shrink into a hole in the floor
"I will not taste this." ---he already knows it's going to suck. e.g. it's pink = too much cayenne.
"ugh. this is bland." --- remove offensive bowl away and immediately start seasoning
"more salt."--- almost. decent attempt, now start reaching for the salt bowl
"ok."--- I have nothing to criticize. You are free to pass.
"good." ---OMG he actually liked it! Standing ovation.
"very good." ---He might as well be doing cartwheels.
"perfect." ---Chef is tasting his own sauce.
So a sauce is defined as a liquid use to complement (not overwhelm) a dish by adding flavor, moisture, and visual appeal. Therefore, sheen, texture, and color are all key to creating a good sauce.
Sauces can be classified under one of the following basic sauces or "mother sauces":
Velouté
Espagnole
Hollandaise
Béchamel
Tomato
To create a sauce, you take your stock (which we made Tuesday) or other liquid and thicken or bind it with a binding element: either a starch, like with a roux; or an emulsifier, like eggs; or even gasses do the trick.
Or you have the option to make a glaze. Glaces are simply stocks that have been reduced to a syrupy consistency. Reducing intensifies the flavor of the stock (obviously, since you are getting rid of the liquid that would normally dilute the flavor).
We made an Espagnole which used our veal stock for the liquid and flour as the binding agent.
You cook bacon, carrots, and onions, then thicken using a method called singer (san-jay, with the j pronounced like the s in vision). Which is, sprinkling flour over a sautéed or roasted item before adding the moisture--in our case, the veal stock. Then the other aromatic elements are added like garlic, tarragon, tomatoes and then left to simmer a while. Finally, you strain the sauce and it's ready to use.
Next, we tackled Béchamel or your basic white sauce. Thanks to my love of macaroni, a gratin potatoes, and pot pie, I had this down. When chef tasted mine, I got a solid ok. No "plus de sel" for me. Béchamel involves making a roux (50:50 butter and four) and slowly adding the milk while whisking. The mixture is then brought to a boil to get rid of any nasty flour taste, then left to simmer. Traditionally it's flavored with salt, cayenne, and nutmeg. So again, flour is the binding agent, and milk is considered the "stock".
Mom: We used 50g butter, 50g flour and 1liter milk. So like 2 oz butter/flour and 33.8 oz milk
The last mother sauce we tackled before lunch was the Chicken Velouté ( vel-loo-TAY). It's basically like a béchamel with chicken stock instead of milk, and you season with salt, pepper, and a little lemon if you're feeling it. A roux still acts as the binding agent, but instead of adding the cold liquid to the roux, like we did with the béchamel, we added a cold roux to the warm chicken stock. To do this, you pour a bit of the stock into the pan/bowl with the roux and mix it till it's runny, then pour the roux mixture into you pot of warm stock.
After lunch, we made some sauces that could be considered derivative sauces or sauces that are based on a mother sauce but then get a little fancy. We did a white wine sauce and a chateaubriand or wine and mushroom sauce.
The white wine sauce was made using our fumet or fish stock and white wine and cream to bind the stock. We first made a reduction with shallots and the wine then added the stock, reduced again, then finally added the cream to thicken it until it naps the back of a spoon (nappant). Chef had us add tarragon which, is too licorice-y for my liking so it wasn't my fave. Plus the wine and the lemon juice made it kinda acidic which you can still taste even when it's properly salted.
Last was the chateaubriand. We made this in teams and our team was the absolute last to finish cause our sauce was not reducing. This sauce is a derivative of the espagnole sauce. Basically you sauté some mushrooms, add in some shallots, then flambé with brandy. You add a smidgeon of alcohol to the pan, being sure it's off the burner then you put the pan back over the burner (high heat) being careful to angle it away from your face because it immediately flames up and singes your eyebrows while adding a nice brown to the contents of your pan. You then deglaze with, you guessed it, wine, and reduce it down to like nothing or a' sec/to dry stage (The recipe actually says reduce by 7/10ths, like who writes these instructions). Then finally you add in your espagnole sauce and some other liquid and let in simmer down. We didn't have to use any thickeners cause the espagnole is already bound; however, our sauce would NOT reduce. It refused to be anything but liquid. Finally we cranked it up to mostly a boil and forced some liquid out so we could monter au beurre, literally mount with butter. You just add some dollops in there and it gives it a nice sheen (French like pretty food, remember?) and packs in some more calories. There was a happy end to this saucy tale: After tasting chef told us our sauce was good. GOOD I tell you. Like the tortoise and the hare, slow and steady wins the race...or something like that. But let's be honest, if that happened to me during a practical or when working, I wouldn't be winner, slow and steady would just be bad.
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| Sautéing Mushrooms |
Aside: We actually just ate some of the sauce Chateaubriand I brought home for dinner tonight. It was good. We added some chopped fillet meat to the sauce and served it over mashed potatoes like a gravy. Clearly the diet was thrown out the window today. German buffet for lunch, emulsified sauces in class... (yes a blog post will be coming, I'm behind)
Remember, PLUS DE SEL!
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