Day 17: Saucy

Tuesday we focused on making other grand sauces and derivative sauces from the mother sauces. Today we worked in teams so it was a lot less hectic, especially since we made 7 sauces.

Demi Glace: This is brown veal stock and Sauce Espagnole reduced. You would think this would taste exactly like Sauce Espagnole but adding additional veal stock gave it a lot more flavor and thickness.

Mise en place for Classic Tomato Sauce

Classic Tomato Sauce: WOW I could live off of this sauce. This happened to be the longest cooking, most complicated of the sauces but the results were unreal. This classic tomato sauce uses pancetta and pork bones, the 2 secrets to getting exceptional flavor, vegetarians be aware. There are also a ton of veggies, herbs, and veal stock included in the recipe.  After cooking this sauce for 3 hours we used an immersion blender to grind up all of the veggies and pancetta. This device is a power tool that blends everything up right in the pot you are cooking in! I brought home the sauce and used it 3 times in the past two days- first to make quinoa, then pasta, and dip in bread.

Finished Classic Tomato Sauce 

Sauce Allemande- This uses mushrooms, Veloute from yesterday, egg yolks cream, and a bunch of other ingredients. This was not my favorite, but it was a very interesting recipe. When cooking with egg yolks,  you need to 'temper the liason'. While the egg yolks and cream are titled the liason, what tempering means is to pour some hot liquid into the egg yolk/cream combination prior to pouring it into the main pot of ingredients. This adjusts the temperature of the liason slowly, avoiding the eggs from scrambling.

Sauce Supreme-This is made with Veloute, heavy cream, butter and salt and pepper.

Sauce Mornay-Another favorite. This is Bechamel sauce with Gruyere cheese and Parmigianao-Reggiano mixed in, of course its amazing. After heating the Bechamel you whisk in the cheeses, season it and it is all done! I had to force myself to leave this sauce at school otherwise I would have been licking the bowl.

Fortified Wine Derivatives From Demi-Glace-As it sounds, this is a sauce with a wine base. It is extremely aromatic.

Tomato Sauce Soubise- Soubise means 'a lot of onions', aka this dish had a pound of onions in it. In addition there was butter, Bechamel, and tomato puree. Once cooked we used the immersion blender to blend it up. At the end of the process it tasted similar to vodka sauce.  Another sauce that I had to resist drinking.

Immersion Blending the Tomato Subise

Finished Tomato Subise