Lots of sauces in a row
How do you untangle the maze of sauces on the menu at a restaurant? FavorFlav offers help: all the classic sauces in a row.
Sauce is an incredibly important part of a dish: it creates balance, provides support and brings the ingredients together. It elevates a dish. When a chef can make a good sauce, you know: this is a real cook.
Basic sauces
According to Escoffier, there are five mother sauces: velouté, béchamel, espagnole, hollandaise and tomato sauce. Virtually all sauces are derived from these.
Aioli – mayo with lots and lots of garlic. Spread it on a sandwich and let your tapas night begin. Make sure your date eats just as much of it as you do.
Albufera sauce – the base is a light poultry stock. The stock is reduced and cream is added. A mixture of butter and puréed peppers then makes the sauce ‘Albufera’.
Anchovy sauce – the main ingredients of this sauce are garlic, parsley and anchovies. Delicious on a piece of bread or over roasted peppers or freshly sliced fennel.
Béarnaise – the same sauce as hollandaise (see below), but with shallot, chervil and tarragon added. This also makes béarnaise herby and therefore delicious with that côte de boeuf we love so much.
Béchamel – You obviously know it from your mother’s lasagna. It is a creamy, white sauce made with milk and a white roux.
Beurre blanc – white wine, cream, butter and a shallot. Simple and irresistibly delicious, especially with white fish.
Beurre nantais – a variation on beurre blanc with herbs (parsley at the very least) and a little lemon mixed in.
Beurre noisette – literally ‘hazelnut butter’, but there is no nut involved. Despite what the name suggests, this sauce consists solely of butter. The butter is browned and that’s it. Browning gives the butter a nutty flavor. Pour the sauce over any fish and your feast can begin.
Bordelaise – a sauce based on thickened brown veal stock and red wine, thickened with marrow.
Chimichurri – the Argentine/Uruguayan version of salsa verde.
Espagnole – a thickened brown sauce. This is a true basic sauce—you rarely see it listed as such on a menu.
Grand veneur – the base is game stock, into which you stir red berries (such as cranberries) and cream. Delicious with game. Give us a piece of venison with grand veneur and you won’t hear from us again.
Gremolata – lemon zest, garlic and parsley. Osso buco + gremolata = win-win.
Gribiche – a fresh oil-based sauce with hard-boiled egg, parsley, tarragon, capers and gherkin.
Hollandaise – made with egg yolk, butter and lemon. So the sauce is wonderfully rich and creamy, while the lemon also makes it fresh. The best friend of a poached egg.
Jus de veau (also known as: veal stock) – highly reduced stock made from roasted veal bones.
Mornay sauce – the base is béchamel, into which grated Gruyère is stirred.
Persillade – a herb mixture based on parsley and garlic. There are many variations. One persillade is not the other, as they say.
Ravigote – a classic vinaigrette (vinegar, oil, mustard, salt, pepper) mixed with finely chopped onion, capers and fresh herbs.
Remoulade – the sauce served alongside your kibbeling. It consists of mayonnaise, gherkin, fresh herbs (parsley, chives, chervil, tarragon) and capers. Sometimes a tiny bit of finely mashed anchovy is added.
Romesco – a Spanish sauce made with peppers (the Spanish use ñora peppers instead of bell peppers, but they’re not available here), tomato, almonds, garlic and oil.
Rouille – traditionally stirred into fish soup to season it until the soup is exactly to your liking. Rouille is mayonnaise-based. The sauce gets its pink color from chili pepper and saffron.
Salsa verde – there are many variations of this sauce. As long as it contains lots of delicious green herbs and is nicely fresh from, for example, vinegar or lemon. Whichever version you make, it is always delicious over roasted meat.
Sauce américaine – a sauce based on extracted shellfish.
Normandy sauce – a sauce made with fish and mushroom stock, made creamy with egg yolks.
Vélouté – a white sauce made with veal or poultry stock or extracted fish stock, thickened with roux.
Vichyssoise – a sauce or a soup? Opinions are divided. In any case, vichyssoise is made with potato, leek and heavy cream.
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