A sauce is a hot or cold seasoned liquid either served with, or used in the cooking of, a dish. The word comes from the Latin salsus (salted), since salt has always been the ba­sic condiment. The function of a sauce is to add a flavour to a dish that is compati­ble with the ingredients. Medieval sauces (carheline, dodine, poivrade, Robert, etc.), which relied on such ancient condiments as garum and spikenard, were either very hot or sweet- and-sour. They consisted mainly of spicy stocks based on wine, verjuice, and cook­ ing juices, sometimes blended with toasted breadcrumbs. It was not until the 17th and 18th centuries that more refined and aromatic preparations appeared, such as bechamel, Soubise, mirepoix, duxelles, and mayonnaise sauces.

 

Hot Sauces , which are by far the more numerous, are subdivided into brown sauces and white sauces. The great, or basic, brown sauces, from which many others are derived, are espagnole, demi- glace, and tomato sauces. The basic white sauces are bechamel and veloute, and they too have innumerable derivatives.  

 

Cold Sauces are usually based on mayonnaise or vinaigrette, and they too have many varia­tions. The classical repertoire was gradu­ally increased by sauces from other coun­tries, often introduced (Cumberland, Albert, reform, and Cambridge sauces, sauce a la russe, a I'italienne, a la polonaise, etc.). A sauce may be thick or thin; it may be strained or it may contain visible ingredi­ents. It can be used to season raw food (tomatoes with vinaigrette, celery with remoulade), it may form part of a cooked dish (gratin a la bechamel, vol-au-vent financiere, salmis of duck, carp Chambord ), or it may be served with a cold dish (hake with mayonnaise) or a hot dish (chateaubriand bearnaise, venison Saint-Hubert, sole normande). Some sauces are part of the dish itself (ragouts, civets, coq au vin, chicken chasseur, etc.), rather than being made separately as an ac­ companiment. Such sauces may, how­ ever, be served separately in a sauceboat or used to coat some other preparation (hard-boiled (hard-cooked) eggs, chauds- froids, fish in scallop shells, etc.). The choice of equipment is very impor­tant. Deep thick-bottomed saucepans should be used, to ensure the proper dis­tribution of heat to prevent the sauce from burning or curdling. The bain-marie is an essential accessory, as well as a metal whisk and a spatula for scraping the resi­due from the base of the pan. A fine, perfectly smooth, and glossy sauce can be ob­tained by rubbing it through a sieve (known as 'tammying'). The preparation of sauces requires a certain amount of skill and such techniques as deglazing, reduc­ing, thickening, preventing a skin form­ing, emulsifying, thinning with milk, stock, or alcohol, enriching with cream and/or egg yolks, and the judicious use of flavourings. 

 

There are four basic methods for making a sauce:  

 

• Mixing together cold ingredients. This is the simplest method, used, for example, for vinaigrette and ravigote.  

• Making a roux by heating together but­ ter and flour. This method is used for bechamel sauce and its various derivatives (Mornay, Soubise, etc.). 

• Cooking a stock (veal, game, chicken, or fish) and adding a white or brown roux or some other mixture (a mirepoix, mari­ nade, mushrooms, etc.). This produces veloute and espagnole sauces and their de­ rivatives: allemande, ivoire, poulette, nor­mande, cardinal, and Nantua sauces (white) and bordelaise, erigueux, chas­ seur, poivrade, venison sauces, etc. (brown). These sauces may be thickened with butter, cornflour (cornstarch), blood, or egg yolk or flavoured with meat, chicken, or fish glazes.  

 

Depending on the type of dish for which the sauce is intended, the most va­ried ingredients, herbs, and spices can be used. Some dishes are classically accompa­ nied by particular sauces: mutton or fish with curry sauce, salt cod with garlic sauce (aioli), duck with bigarade (orange) sauce, game with Cumberland sauce, beef with piquante sauce, etc. Other ingredi­ents include grated cheese, crushed tomatoes, anchovies, duxelles, chopped ham, foie-gras, chopped truffles, shellfish, vine­gar, fresh cream, red or white wine, alco­hol, etc.

 

These tested Sauce recipes come presented by Cooks Reference.  

Hot Sauce Recipes, Cold Sauce Recipes, Recipes for Dressings, Stock Recipes.