By CINDA CHAVICH

When Julia Child wrote her 1960s classic – The French Chef – she knew one thing for certain: French cooking is all about the sauce.

Yes, you must learn the fundamentals, the way to braise and roast and poach your protein to perfection. But after that, it’s the French skill with sauces that turns a basic chicken breast into Suprêmes de Volaille au Champignon, makes a simple steak a Bifteck Sauté Béarnaise, and gives poached eggs on toast the cachet of Eggs Benedict.

There are only a few “mother” sauces in the French repertoire, all of the others are variations on the theme. So learn to make a basic white sauce, a brown sauce and hollandaise, and you’ll be on your way to gourmet territory.

WHITE SAUCES

You may know it as béchamel or velouté, even mornay, but all are basically white sauces, with a twist.

A white sauce is the basis for many everyday dishes, whether you’re making macaroni and cheese, creamed spinach or asparagus gratin. The formula is essentially the same for any basis white sauce – flour, butter, milk or white broth (chicken or fish) – and the sauce will be done in five minutes.

A medium white sauce requires 1 ½-2 tablespoons of flour for each cup of liquid, and about the same amount of unsalted butter. Start by melting the butter over low heat in a heavy saucepan. Whisk in the flour, getting rid of any lumps, and cook the mixture together, stirring, for about 2 minutes. This is called the roux. You must cook it together to make sure the sauce has no floury taste.

Meanwhile, heat the cup of milk for béchamel (or broth for velouté). Slowly add the hot milk or broth to the roux, whisking constantly as you pour to prevent lumps. Bring the sauce to a boil over medium heat and boil, whisking, for a minute to thicken. Season to taste with salt and white pepper. A velouté sauce is usually made with slightly more liquid, and reduced over low heat for 30 minutes to achieve a very velvety texture.

Et voila – white sauce, béchamel or velouté. If the sauce is too thick, whisk in milk, cream or stock, a tablespoon at a time. If it’s too thin, boil it down over low heat (reduce), stirring constantly, or whisk in a little beurre manié (equal parts of softened butter and flour, mixed to form a paste). Remember, a white butter sauce should be semi-transparent, not heavy.

VARIATIONS:

Enrich the white sauce by whisking in a bit of cold butter at the end (a tablespoon per cup) or make an extra thick white sauce and beat whipping cream into the simmering sauce (about 1/4 cup cream per cup of béchamel sauce).

Season the white sauce with minced green onions, sautéed mushrooms or onions, herbs like tarragon or basil pesto, tomato paste or curry paste.

For mornay sauce (a.k.a. cheese sauce), make a medium white sauce and whisk in grated Swiss cheese (or a mixture of Swiss and Parmesan), until melted, and season with a pinch of nutmeg. Use 1/4 cup of cheese for each cup of sauce. Or for mac and cheese, add 2 cups of grated old cheddar to 2 cups of sauce and mix with cooked macaroni.

BROWN SAUCES

A basic brown sauce or Sauce Espagnole starts like a white sauce, with a roux of 6 tablespoons of butter or olive oil and 4 tablespoons of flour, cooked together slowly until the mixture starts to brown and turn colour. Add a little more butter or oil if the mixture is too dry – it should be creamy and start to look like peanut butter. This is called a brown roux and gives a brown sauce its colour.

Make sure to watch it and stir constantly while the roux browns to prevent burning.

You can also add the flour to pan drippings – from a roast beef or pork – to make a brown sauce. Just remember to whisk the flour into the fat well so there are no lumps. You’ll need about four tablespoons of flour, and fat, for 6 cups of beef stock.

A homemade beef stock is the best but you can also use canned bouillon, simmered with a bit of white wine or sherry and some minced onion or bay leaf. The stock should be strained and hot before you add it to the browned roux. Add the liquid slowly, and continue to whisk, to avoid lumps.  Season the brown sauce with salt and pepper, and whisk a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste to add flavour and body. A classic brown sauce is a demi-glace, which is enriched with an intense, syrupy reduction made by making a brown meat stock from scratch, then boiling it until it is reduced to a thick glaze.

Brown sauce should be translucent and glossy, never glutinous.

VARIATIONS:

To make a more substantial brown sauce, start with finely chopped carrots, onions and celery, even some chopped meat trimmings, and brown it all in the fat before making the roux. Remove the vegetables and meats from the pan before adding the flour to start the roux for the sauce.

For a pepper sauce, season the brown sauce with coarsely crushed black peppercorns and red wine.

Try adding red currant jelly to the brown sauce, or finishing it with some cream.

Add ¼ cup of Madiera, port or cognac to the finished sauce and simmer for a minute or two. Or reduce ½ cup of Madiera or port until very thick, then stir in brown sauce and a few additional tablespoons of the liquor.

For a brown mustard sauce, slowly cook minced onions in butter until browned and caramelized, add some white wine and simmer to reduce, then stir in 2 cups of brown sauce and 3 tablespoons of Dijon mustard.

For a brown mushroom sauce (sauce duxelles), sauté minced mushrooms and shallots in butter, add white wine and reduce, then stir in brown sauce and simmer together.

HOLLANDAISE SAUCES

A hollandaise is like a mayonnaise – an emulsion sauce thickened by the action of fat, like olive oil, suspended in a mixture thickened with egg yolks.

It can be tricky to regulate the heat on the stovetop to make a hollandaise so I like to make it in a blender. This always works and it’s easy to keep warm in a small thermos.

Just start with 3 egg yolks at room temperature. Then you’ll need 2 tablespoons of freshly-squeezed lemon juice, a pinch of salt and cayenne pepper, and ½ cup of hot melted butter.

Just put the egg yolks, lemon juice, salt and cayenne in the blender and, with the machine running, slowly add the melted butter in a steady stream. When the butter has all been incorporated, the sauce should be thick and emulsified. 

VARIATIONS:

If you beat in a tablespoon or two of white sauce or béchamel, or add a teaspoon of cornstarch to the egg yolks, the sauce will hold without breaking in a warm water bath for longer.

To make a Sauce Mousseline (or Chantilly) for fish fold 1/4 cup stiffly whipped cream into 1 cup of hollandaise.

For asparagus and vegetables, make Sauce Maltaise, using orange juice instead of lemon juice and folding in some finely grated orange peel at the end.

The classic Béarnaise Sauce is made by using a reduction of white wine and white wine vinegar, boiled with minced shallots and tarragon, in place of the lemon juice.

A Sauce Choron is a Béarnaise Sauce, flavoured with 3-4 tablespoons of tomato paste – good on eggs or fish.

MAYONNAISE

Like hollandaise, mayonnaise can be made with a whisk or in a blender, the latter being the far faster method.

Start with 1 whole egg and 2 egg yolks, at room temperature, a tablespoon of wine vinegar or lemon juice, a teaspoon of Dijon mustard and about 1 1/2 cups of good quality olive oil.

It’s the same technique – combine everything but the oil in the blender or food processor and, with the machine running, very slowly drizzle the oil into the mixture through the feed tube. You must do this slowly, really drop by drop at first, until the mayonnaise emulsifies and thickens. If it gets too thick, stir in a few additional drops of lemon juice  or vinegar. Refrigerate the mayonnaise.

VARIATIONS:

Add some minced fresh herbs like basil, chives, parsley etc. Blanche them quickly in boiling water, then chill in cold water and pat dry before chopping – this keeps the colour brighter and the mayonnaise fresher.

Aioli is a garlic-infused mayonnaise – add 4-8 cloves of finely minced or pressed garlic to the sauce.

for Cinda’s recipes for eggs benedict, easy blender hollandaise sauce and mac and cheese (from scratch!) click here...

(This story originally appeared in West magazine, 2008)

©Cinda Chavich 2008

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