Sauces

Sauce is a liquid or semi liquid mixture a combination of ingredients and a keen light and strong aroma all contribute to a perfect sauce.

A perfect sauce has a colorful appearance a velvety texture, a definite taste and a natural flavor. Sauce is generally served along with the dish.

Sauces are categorized into two types

1. KITCHEN SAUCES: Those sauce which are prepared in home kitchen, restaurant kitchen or hotels kitchen are known as kitchen sauce. These sauces have limited shelf life and should be consumed as soon as possible. For example: mother sauce, apple sauce, mint sauce etc.

2. PROPRIETARY SAUCE: Those sauces which are available in the market and the company did not leak out their recipe. These kinds of sauces have more shelf life and contain different types of preservatives. For example: 8n8, soy sauce, tomato ketchup, hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, Worcestershire sauce etc.

IMPORTANCE OF SAUCE

1. Sauces add flavor to the dish and at the same time also helps to cook food.   

2. Sometime sauces are served to bring out the character to the dish.

3. The most important reason to serve a sauce is to provide moistness to the food.  

4. Sauces are also used to provide a contrasting color onto a plate, so that the overall appearance of the dish is enhanced and it looks like a work of an art.         

5. Sauces add texture to the food and enhance the overall experience. Traditionally, a crisp-fried texture of the fish finger is enhanced by providing a creamy tartare sauce.                    

6. Sauces also helps to increase the nutritional value of the dish.                                                   

 7. Some sauces helps in the digestion for example mint sauce, apple sauce orange sauce. A sauce is to be served with any kind of food item whether it’s savoury, sweet, hot or cold. Very sweet desserts such as meringue are served with a chunky tropical fruit salsa to cut down excess sweetness of the meringue.

Different types of thickening agents are used to thicken the sauce such as corn flour, rice flour, roasted gram flour, roux, coconut, coriander and cumin powder, tamarind pulp etc. Chinese normally use corn flour to thicken their sauces and soups on the other hand Indians generally used coconut powder, roasted gram flour, tamarind pulp, coriander and cumin powder.

In continental and French cuisine they use Roux to thicken their soups and sauces.

Roux: Roux is a mixture of equal quantity of refined flour and butter which are cooked together in a frying pan for a certain period of time. Roux are classified into 3 types.

Roux get its name according to its colour.

HOW TO PREPARE ROUX.

1. White roux: The equal quantity of butter and refined flour cooked together for 2-3 minutes on medium flame. The raw flavour of the flour is just cooked out while maintaining the white colour. This roux is used in the preparation of bechamel or white sauce. This milk based sauce is thickened with white roux.

2. Blonde roux: Also known as golden roux. Blonde roux is cooked for 3-5 minutes which give light caramelised colour. This roux is used for the preparation of veloute sauce and other sauces which require golden texture.

3. Brown roux: This roux is cooked for 7-10 minutes until the mixture developed dark brown in colour and gives nutty aroma. This brown roux is used in the preparation of brown sauce such as espagnole sauce and brown gravies.

In French cuisine and continental cuisine “Mother sauces” are widely used to prepare most of the food preparations. Mother sauces refer to any one of the five basic sauces, which are the starting points for making various secondary sauces or their derivatives. They are called mother sauces because each one sauce is like head of its own unique family. A sauce is essentially a liquid plus some sort of thickening agent along with other flavoring ingredients. Each of the five mother sauce is made with a different liquid and a different thickening agent. Three of the mother sauces are thickened with different roux. The different types of mother sauces are:

These sauces are classified into 3 parts i.e. “Hot sauce, Warm sauce and cold sauce”.

HOT SAUCE – Bechamel sauce, veloute sauce, espagnole sauce and tomato sauce.

WARM SAUCE-Hollandaise sauce.

COLD SAUCE -Mayonnaise sauce.

While preparing the sauce always keep in mind that hot liquid should never be added into hot roux or hot roux into hot liquid as it may cause the sauce lumpy. A cold liquid is always added into hot roux or hot liquid is added into normal temperature roux.

BASIC SAUCES AND THEIR DERIVATIVES

So I hope the basics of sauces are clear to you.

In my next post we will discuss about the recipes of basic mother sauces and the recipes of their derivatives. Meanwhile keep cooking, stay healthy and eat fresh with me your foodie friend chef venkatesh sharma.