With only a written exam and a hands-on cooking ‘practicum’ separating us from the end of the semester, our final Food Basics class on Wednesday served as a review of pretty much everything that we’ve learned about sauces in the last 15 weeks. The class began with a review of the 5 primary ‘mother’ sauces that we’ve all come to know and love. Well, maybe love isn’t really the right word to use here. From a classical French cooking perspective, mother sauces are the primary sauces for which all derivative (aka small) sauces are made. For example and for our purposes, hollandaise sauce is considered to be a mother sauce and a small sauce derived from that could be a bearnaise sauce, which is basically a hollandaise sauce flavored with tarragon (I’m oversimplifying that, but you get the idea). Generally speaking, most mother sauces are not served as mother sauces…they are frequently made into small sauces or used as bases for other things. Of course there are exceptions to that rule…the aforementioned hollandiase sauce does quite well on its own. Before reading on, my disclaimer is that I’m using this post as a study guide for my upcoming exams so I apologize in advance if it’s too detail-heavy and not picturetastic enough for the casual reader.
Hollandaise
The basic ratio we use is that of 3 egg yolks per 8 oz of butter. There seems to be a wide range of opinions when talking about what type of butter to use, whether it be clarified butter, whole butter chunks or melted whole butter. In class, we use melted whole butter. We do this because we wish to take advantage of the emulsifying agents found in butter. When you make clarified butter, you melt butter and let it come to a boil…this will help to evaporate some of the moisture out. Then you let the butter settle into its 3 parts…the whey protein sits on top, then the actual butterfat will be in the middle and the caseins (milk solids) will sink to the bottom. The problem with using just the clarified butter (or the butterfat) is that you lose the emulsifying properties of the other 2 layers, and what is a hollandaise sauce but an emulsion of butter and egg yolks? So it would be a good thing to retain those emulsifying agents, which is why we use whole butter. Couldn’t we use whole butter cut into cubes as opposed to melting it first? Sure, but we were taught to melt it first, so that’s what I’ll tell you all to do.
Using the “one pot” method, melt the butter and transfer it to a measuring cup (or something that will be easy to pour out of). Clean the pot out and add 1/3 cup of water and 1 tbsp lemon juice and cook this until it reduces by 2/3 and you’re left with about 2 tbsp of liquid, then remove the pot from the heat. This is the acid reduction and will be used to lend an ‘acidic bite’ to your sauce. Cooking the lemon juice helps to develop its flavor. When this mixture has cooled a bit, we add a pinch of cayenne pepper to it…not for flavor, but to also serve as an emulsifying agent. Next, add the egg yolks to this mixture and whisk until the yolks become thick, light in color, and they double in volume…this is a key step in this process. At this point, return the pot to low heat and begin adding in the melted butter, roughly 1 tsp at a time, whisking vigorously between each addition until the butter is incorporated (it won’t require that much whisking between additions). Once half of the butter has been incorporated, increase the additions to 1 tbsp until all of the butter has been added. Now you can correct the seasoning (add salt and potentially more lemon juice if needed but not too much to make the sauce taste lemony) and hold in a hot water bath (bain marie) until you need to serve it.
A few things to point out. It’s a good idea to have some water on hand when adding in the butter. When you’re adding the butter, the sauce is cooking and it’s losing moisture. If it loses too much moisture, it will break (you’ll begin to see beads of fat ‘sweating’ out of the sauce). Add a little bit of water immediately if this happens and pull the pan off the heat. It is not mandatory that the butter be added over heat…you can remove the pot from the heat as needed (and in some ways, adding solid butter helps to keep things cool…but we’re not supposed to ‘cheat’ in class). If the sauce does break in this manner because it has lost too much moisture, you can save it by adding some of the broken sauce to a fresh bowl that has a small amount of water in it. Whisk that together and periodically add a bit more of the broken sauce, eventually adding all of it to this ‘new’ sauce. Return the sauce to heat if necessary and if you did it right, no one will be able to tell that your sauce broke. If holding your sauce for a while, it is also a good idea to keep adding a few drops of water to it to prevent it from breaking (over time, holding in a hot water bath may cause too much moisture to evaporate out). The other way hollandaise sauce can break is if the butter is added too quickly. You can save this sauce as well by basically repeating the same process, except this time using an egg yolk instead of water.
Here we have the three dudes in class, furiously whisking away at their hollandaise sauces:
Actually, this process need not be so stressful provided you know what to look for and you’ve done a good job when it comes to arranging your ‘mise en place’.
We made a number of different flavored hollandaise-based small sauces today, including basil infused, horseradish infused and Asian chili pepper flavored varieties.
Mayonnaise
Some people don’t really consider mayonnaise to be a mother sauce because it is not cooked. We’re not that prissy in class and the fact is that mayonnaise can be used as a basis for a number of small sauces, so we include it as a mother sauce. The process for making mayonnaise is similar to hollandiase, with a few differences. First, the ratio of fat to oil is a different…2 egg yolks to 1 cup of fat. The fat is also different…neutral flavored oil (canola) is used instead of butter. Begin by whisking together the egg yolks, something acidic (usually lemon juice if making ‘plain’ mayonnaise), and dry mustard, which like the cayenne pepper in hollandaise, is used as an emulsification agent, not for flavor. When the egg yolks are light in color, light in texture and have roughly doubled in volume, begin whisking in the oil, 1 tsp at a time until half of it has been incorporated, then 1 tbsp at a time. 2 things here….this ’1 tsp then 1 tbsp’ rule is meant to be a guideline and doesn’t have to be literally interpreted. The key thing to take away from that is to add the fat slowly (this is true for hollandaise). The other thing is that you may not want to add all of this oil to your mayonnaise. An egg yolk can hold up to 1 cup of fat. You note here that the ratio calls for 2 egg yolks, meaning that we could add up to 2 cups of oil. The more oil you add to your mayonnaise, the lighter in color and flavor it will be so the amount of oil you add should be recipe dependent (depending on what you want to use the mayonnaise for) and also a matter of personal preference. The same holds true for the consistency of the mayonnaise; how thick you want it to be ultimately depends on what you want to do with it. Whatever you decide to do with it, it’s a good idea to have some water on hand to add to the mayonnaise…the water will help to thin it out if it gets too thick. Whenever I make mayonnaise at home, I always find I have to add a few tsp of water to it as I whisk in the oil.
A very common small sauce for mayonnaise is an aioli. From a purist’s point a view, an aioli will be nothing more than mayonnaise with the addition of raw garlic that has been mashed into a paste. In class, we made all sorts of different types of mayonnaises including dill flavored and chipotle flavored varieties:
Bechamel
A bechamel sauce is nothing more than a roux and milk. A roux is a mixture of equal parts fat (usually butter for our purposes) and flour. The fat and flour are cooked together and used to thicken things…like sauces. Using more roux for a given quantity of liquid will result in a thicker product, so getting this ratio right in the beginning makes all the difference. When making a bechamel sauce, we use a ratio 2 tbsp butter and 2 tbsp flour for every 1 cup of liquid. The roux begins by gently melting butter. You don’t want the butter to be boiling away like crazy…if it is, then when you add the flour to it, you can damage the starch in the flour, which renders its ability to absorb liquid useless, meaning that it won’t have any thickening power (this process is called hydrolysis). When the butter is melted, remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the flour. Return the pan to the heat and cook the roux until it begins to bubble…this is what we call a ‘blond” roux.
To this roux, you want to add scalded (just above body temperature) milk. This is done off of the heat and in 2 additions…add half of the milk, whisk to combine, then add the other half of the milk, then return the pan to the heat and simmer this just until it comes to a boil. As soon as this boils, strain it. If the sauce is too thick, you can thin it out by adding more milk and if it’s too thin, you can thicken it by adding a little bit of cornstarch that has been dissolved in cold water (a slurry). Finally, correct the seasoning with salt, pepper (can be white pepper if you don’t want to see black specks) and freshly grated nutmeg (used as a flavor enhancer). The thickness of the bechamel depends on what you intend to do with it. In increasing thickness, it can be used in a soup, as a basis for sauces (a mornay sauce is a bechamel sauce with the addition of grated cheese), or as a component in a souffle base.
Veloute
A veloute is similar to bechamel in that it begins with a blond roux. From there, instead of adding milk, a veloute calls for scalded stock. You can use any stock but it is very common to use chicken stock. As with a bechamel, the stock is added in 2 additions, off heat. From here, instead of boiling the sauce, it must be simmered…a lot. And skimmed. You basically simmer and skim the sauce until it reaches ‘nappe’ consistency, defined as a proper sauce consistency (or in Food Network terminology, it means the sauce will coat the back of a spoon). The skimming of the sauce is important…this helps to remove the excess starchiness from the sauce…another indicator of the sauce’s doneness will be a distinct lack of any starchy taste. Unlike bechamel, making veloute it’s not a quick process. As the sauce simmers for a long period of time, some of its moisture will be lost due to evaporation. As this happens, you’ll want to periodically add water to the sauce. Don’t add more stock…good stocks contain gelatin and adding too much gelatin will cause the sauce to thicken too much. When it is appropriate to do so, the sauce is strained and the seasoning is adjusted. It is not uncommon to add what’s called a liason to a veloute. A liason is a mixture of egg yolks and cream (usually 3 yolks per cup of cream) that is tempered into a sauce for the purposes of enrichment and to add body to it. The liason is added right at the end and not that you would do it to a veloute, but once the liason has been added, you cannot boil the sauce (eggs coagulate at 180 degrees). In school, we refer to this sauce (veloute + a liason) as a parisienne, a veloute small sauce. Another veloute small sauce is a sauce supreme, which is a veloute with just cream added to it.
A veloute is known for being a velvety and smooth sauce and like a bechamel, can also be used as a base for soup. If that is the case, you’d use a lesser proportion of roux to liquid. In class we use the following roux:liquid ratios…
- Soups require 1 tbsp flour and 1 tbsp fat per 1 cup of liquid
- Sauces require 2 tbsp flour and 2 tbsp fat per 1 cup of liquid
- Souffle bases require 3 tbsp flour and 3 tbsp fat per 1 cup of liquid
Espagnole
The most dreaded of all the mother sauces….this one requires the most care and attention, mostly due to the fact that the roux must be cooked for a long time (as opposed to the short roux-cooking times used for veloute and bechamel sauces). This sauce begins by sweating onions and carrots in clarified butter. The size of the onions and carrots is important…since they will cook for a long time, you don’t want them to be too small or else they will just disintegrate, but you don’t want them to be too big or else it will be hard to extract all of their flavor. Once the onions and carrots have begun to soften, add the flour and any other aromatics. This mixture is cooked over a low heat, stirring constantly, until a mahogany color has been achieved. It is important to pay attention to it as it cooks. We use clarified butter here in the roux as an insurance policy against burning. With clarified butter, the impurities (the things that we desired when making hollandaise) have been removed, thus increasing the smoke-point of the fat…meaning that we can cook it for a long period of time and not have to worry as much about burning the fat itself. But once the roux begins to change from a yellow to a brown color, it will change quickly and can go from brown to burnt in an instant, which is extraordinarily frustrating since it could take 45 minutes to get to a mahogany color and by minute 46, it could burn, which is just about what happened to me when I made my espagnole.
Once the roux has achieved the correct color, we add scalded veal stock….once again incorporated in 2 off-heat additions. Then this goes back on the heat and just like with a veloute, we have to simmer and skim the mixture for a long time in order to cook out the starchiness. Additionally, a dark brown roux loses its thickening power by 1/3, so in order to achieve the correct consistency for the sauce, it needs to be reduced by 3/4 its original volume (note: the roux to liquid ratio is initially still 2 tbsp fat and 2 tbsp flour to 1 cup liquid). When the sauce is no longer starchy and the correct consistency has been achieved, the aromatics are strained out and the seasoning is corrected, although generally speaking, it is uncommon to serve just a plain espagnole sauce…typically it is turned into a small sauce (which is a good thing because espagnole sauce on it’s own is actually kind of gross).
In this photo above, the 3 yellowish sauces in the bottom right-hand corner are the veloutes. The 3 brown sauces are the different espagnole small sauces….a balsamic vinegar sauce (I don’t know the name for this one but I can say that adding balsamic vinegar to espagnole sauce is real nice), a madeira sauce (espagnole fortified with maderia wine), and a sauce robert (espangole sauce with the addition of mustard to it). The white sauce is the lone bechamel sauce.
We did have some protiens today to serve as conduits for all the sauces that we made. Here is some poached salmon and just barely in the frame, some sliced rib-eye steak:
Plus some grilled salmon and a big bowl of pasta served with calamari in marinara sauce:
While marinara (or basically any classic tomato based sauce) isn’t necessarily considered to be a true mother sauce, it is still a valuable sauce for any chef to have in their repertoire. They are easy to make and extremely popular and versatile.
