One sure way to create new taste dimensions is the use of sauces and condiments. Sauces provide inventive cooks with the creative outlets needed to accentuate any staple. Sauces give free reign to restaurant operators to create a signature dish and new marketing opportunities. While everyone wants a comfortable atmosphere, excellent service and great tasting foods it is the latter that most often differentiates a restaurant and represents the reason for guest’s return.
Sauces are delicately, and sometimes strongly flavoured concentrated liquids designed to enhance and complement the taste of the main ingredient on the plate.
Many classically trained chefs regard flavourful sauces as the pinnacle of cuisine, both in skill and interest. Texturally and taste wise sauces provide excitement. Often, the most memorable part of a gastronomic meal is the sauce. The saucier in a large kitchen brigade is considered a key player, and often replaces the sous chef on his/her off days.
A sauce works like a seasoning. It enhances and accents the flavour of the food. A well-prepared sauce never overwhelms the main ingredient. Good cooks know that sauces are as valuable as salt and pepper. Even a grilled steak is tastes better with a dab of compound butter or a spoonful of Sauce Béarnaise.
Any skilled cook possesses the basics of good sauce making.
There are cold and hot sauces. Mayonnaise and others fall into cold sauces category, whereas Sauce Bordelaise falls into the hot. Then there are mother sauces from which several others are derived.
Mayonnaise can be flavoured with chopped parsley, chopped watercress, even curry. Artistic cooks know intuitively or by experience which flavours work with basic sauces and those that clash.
In hot sauces the stock represents the foundation. Stocks can be produced using beef-, veal-, chicken-, duck-, lamb- and fish bones and vegetables.
From beef stock chefs derive demi-glace which forms the basis of the following sauces: Poivrade, Madere, Bordelaise, Robert, Chasseur, Charcutiere just to name a few.
Béchamel based on a roux and milk represents the foundation of Sauce Mornay, Cream, Shrimp, Cardinal, Nantua, Ecossaise, and many others.
Sauce Hollandaise based on yolks, peppercorns, vinegar, butter and lemon juice is the foundation (mother) sauce for the following: Maltaise, Mousseline, Béarnaise, Foyot, Choron just to name a few.
Today many chefs prefer creating quick sauces by using pan juices of fried meats and wine by reduction. This technique has advantages. It eliminates lengthy stock preparations, and refrigerated space. Food manufacturers, ever astute to generate more profits, have invented semi-solid or powdered stocks and sauce bases for a long time now. They are designed for people with little or no cooking knowledge. Anyone who can read and follow a recipe can use these products. Some are good; many rely heavily on salt and little else.
Pending on the class of the restaurant chefs must make choices given monetary, space and skill constraints.
An expertly prepared sauce using the correct ingredients of quality will never fail to elevate any meat, fish or fowl recipe to heavenly heights.
Whatever flavour profile chefs choose, sauce is a sure way to flavour protein or pasta. Sauces provide ample opportunities for creativity, excitement and experimentation. That’s what diners look for, and restaurateurs delivering flavourful dishes reap the benefits of culinary excellence.
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Mike Foster
June 11th, 2009 at 07:16
The right sauce sure does add to a meal. For me, though, it all comes down to a taste that compliments the main dish, made without meat, and not too rich…boy, am I a pain, huh?
peace,
mike
livelife365
Mike Foster´s last blog ..More Fun With Fiber
Morten Pedersen
June 11th, 2009 at 07:33
You know what you like and that is a good thing. And it is really a good thing that we all have different taste-buds.
Sheenan Porter
June 12th, 2009 at 10:06
A good sauce will compliment the right dish, but with meat I would rather it didn’t overpower the taste. Some people try to cover up the natural flavor like the “special sauce” on a MacDonalds big mac.
Morten Pedersen
June 12th, 2009 at 10:09
I agree, it must match it not kill it.
Dwacon
June 13th, 2009 at 00:59
Saucemaking is an art as well as a science. I enjoy it immensely… both the making and the eating thereof!
Dwacon´s last blog ..If You Lived in Japan, You’d See Things Like This…
Morten Pedersen
June 13th, 2009 at 09:09
Yes, but it can be a pain in the as making it and getting the right taste.
liza
June 14th, 2009 at 09:00
I agree with all of you. Sometimes sauce is too strong it competes with the taste of meat.
I hope you don’t mind that I have added you to my links. If it’s not too much, I hope you can add me too. Thanks! Happy Sunday.
liza´s last blog ..Palitaw
admin
June 15th, 2009 at 09:58
I have added your link and to my Entrecard drop list.
Dave Brown
June 24th, 2009 at 02:26
A good sauce is where it’s at. Lately I have really been trying to work on my sauces. The other night I made an italian red sauce with sausage, peppers, and all sorts of great stuff, and I was really impressed with myself. Sauces can make or break a meal.
Dave Metz
July 20th, 2009 at 04:27
A great sauce will lift most dishes to new heights. Making a wonderful sauce probably demands the highest level of culinary skills possible and can sometimes be compared to the skill set required by patissiers or chocolatiers. All require a certain amount of delicacy when perfecting the art and warrants significant care in the making.
Dave Metz´s last blog ..Planted Tropical Aquariums
Neil Cashman
September 27th, 2009 at 18:34
Agreed, sauces can make or break a dish. I love working with sauces at home, but Im too lazy to make a real beef stock and jus for small sauces. I try to cheat with beef broth…it gets close but never exact.
Another sauce Im working on replicating but can’t quite is chinese brown sauce. But i’ll get it!