Mother Sauce cooking information, facts and recipes. A basic sauce that serves as a base sauce to use in making other variations of the original sauce. Since we covered so much ground in the French Mother Sauce Series, both on the blog and podcast, I figured it would be a good idea to place all the information in one. The Five Mother Sauces Every Cook Should Know. We partnered with Jet. Seriously, they have everything Get almost every ingredient for this recipe here. In the 1. What Is a Mother Sauce French chef Marie AntoineCarme was the first to organize all the French sauces into groups that were based on four foundational sauces. There are five mother sauces in the culinary arts from which all other sauces are made. Learn to make mother sauces. The five sauces every home cook should know how to make and customize. Mother sauces provide the foundation for hundreds of different sauces. Learn more about the five mother sauces and how you can adapt them for your recipes. The Mother Sauces are the five most basic sauces that any legitimate sauce is derived from. These fundamentals either begin with a roux, a st. The Essence of Emeril Episodes 7 SERIES. Mother Sauces. Mother Sauces. See TuneIn Times. Recipes From This Episode. Espagnole Sauce. DemiGlace. Knowing the five basic mother sauces is as helpful to the food lover as it is to the chef. Understanding these sauces will help you read menus, decide what to. Marie Antoine Carme anointed Bchamel, Velout, Espagnole, and tomato sauce as the building blocks for all other sauces in his work LArt de la Cuisine Franaise au Dix Neuvime Siecle. Later on, Hollandaise got added to the family. Since then, many people consider others saucessweet and savory from all around the worldas unofficial extended relatives of these five sauces. Though some will argue for the importance of chimichurri and chocolate sauce, its a knowledge of the five French mother sauces that will prove essential. They may seem intimidating, but mother sauces will nurture your kitchen confidence. With a few simple ingredients mostly flour, butter, and a liquid and a couple easy techniques, these five sauces, all equally important to your cooking repertoire, serve as the starting point for a slew of other classics. Once you get the feel for these sauces, youll be able to whisk them up whenever you want to get fancy. And soon enough, youll feel confident enough to break tradition and take that Mother Sauce somewhere shes never gone before. Heres what you need to know about the building blocks of sauces  Beyond flavor, the most important element of any sauce is its ability to smother and cling to whatever it gets drizzled, dolloped, or poured on. That means making the sauce thick and stable, which is accomplished with three techniques a roux, an emulsifier, and a reduction liquid thats slowly cooked down until thick. Four out of the five mother sauces start with a roux. Roux is a fancy name for flour mixed with fat. Equal parts butter and flour get cooked over medium heat, then a liquid gets added. This mixture then boils, thickens reduces, and becomes the base of your sauce. Just note, if youre making a white saucelike Bchamel or Veloutdo not brown the butter, as it will darken the finished product. The last mother sauce is a product of emulsification, which Ill explain below. More Is it your first time making a roux Heres how to do it, step by step. Here are the basic formulas of the five mother sauces Bchamel Roux  Dairy traditionally milk or creamVelout Roux  White Stock traditionally chicken, but also vegetable or fishEspagnole Roux  Brown Stock traditionally veal or beefTomato Roux Tomatoes or, go the Italian route by skipping the roux and simply reducing tomatoes over medium low heat until thickHollandaise Egg Yolks Clarified Melted Butter  Acid like lemon juice or white wineNow that you understand the basics, lets talk about each Mother Sauce in more detail and what to pair them with Bchamel. If youve eaten homemade macaroni and cheese, a classic croque madame, or lasagna, chances are youve experienced the rich creaminess of Bchamel. It can be made in its most basic form by just combining roux and cream, or it can be mixed with other ingredients to create new sauces Mornay is made by adding Gruyre or Parmesan, and mustard sauce is made by addingyou guessed itmustard. Here are some other ways to use Bchamel Swap in Bchamel for some of the cream in a gratin. Sweet Potato And Black Bean Chili. Pour it over polenta cakes and broil for a few minutes until bubbly and golden brown. Once youve mastered basic Bchamel, heres how to get more creative Spike a classic Bchamel with soy and miso for a new take on Trent Pierces Miso Creamed Kale or Nobus Fried Asparagus. VeloutLike good old Bchamel, Velout begins with a white roux, but then it gets mixed with white stock made from fish, chicken, or veal. Technically not a finished sauce, its used as a flavorful starting point for gravies, mushroom sauces hello chicken pot pie, and shrimp sauce hello shrimp bisque. Here are some other ways to use Velout Once youve mastered basic Velout, heres how to get more creative Make velout vegetarian with a mushroom based stock for this Vegetarian Mushroom Thyme Gravy. Espagnole Although some think blond roux have more fun, Espagnole proves that dark roux know how to party, too. Also known as brown sauce, Espagnole begins with a mirepoix carrots, celery, and onions, beef stock, and deglazed brown bits fond from beef bones. From there, tomato paste and spices may be added. To make a demi glace, a rich French brown sauce, combine the Espagnole with more beef stock to create Bordelaise, a red wine sauce that pairs well with steak and mushrooms, mix the demi glace with red wine and herbs. Serve this with filet mignon for an excellent dinner. Here are some other ways to use Espagnole and its variations Once youve mastered basic Espagnole, heres how to get more creative Take Espagnole somewhere new by adding tamarind paste and making Dan Barbers Braised Short Ribs. Tomato Probably the first mother sauce you ever tasted over a heaping bowl of spaghetti, tomato sauce is often a mixture of just onions, garlic, and tomatoes. Although some traditionalists may start with a roux, most tomato sauces merely rely on a tomato reduction to build flavor and create thickness. Here are some other ways to use tomato sauce Once youve mastered basic tomato sauce, heres how to get more creative Marcella Hazans tomato sauce cant be beat, but if you want to think outside of Italy, use your tomato sauce to make Lentil Cakes with Tikka Masala instead. Hollandaise. Think of Hollandaise as a fancy mayonnaise that uses clarified butter in place of oil and gets drizzled over asparagus and eggs without judgment. Instead of using a roux or a reduction, Hollandaise uses the method of emulsification the act of using a binding agent in this case, an egg yolk to force two ingredients that dont mix well together here, butter and lemon juice to like each other immensely. Hollandaise takes patience, as youll need to temper the mixture so that the eggs do not curdle. The sauce can break easily, but you can patch things back together by adding a little heavy cream and whisking until the sauce returns to its smooth state or use Amandas trick for fixing broken aiolia close relative of Hollandaise sauceby using the broken emulsification to start your next batch. Sound like a lot of hard work This Fried Green Tomato Benedict makes it all worth the trouble. When mixed with unsweetened whipped cream, Hollandaise suddenly becomes airy Mousseline that can be poured over fish or vegetables. Here are some other ways to use Hollandaise Once youve mastered basic Hollandaise, heres how to get more creative Let another breakfast staple enjoy the creaminess of Hollandaise with this Savory Oatmeal recipe. Or take your next Caramelized Pork Bahn Mi to new heights by replacing the mayonnaise with a Sriracha spiked Hollandaise sauce. Short rib photo by Sarah Shatz last photo by Marta Greber all others by James Ransom. This article originally ran in February of 2. Tags mother sauces, sauces, bchamel, veloute, hollandaise, tomato sauce, espagnol View Comments Share this Article Tweet this Article. What Are The 5 Basic Mother Sauces Chefs have been taking basic sauces from the list of five mother sauces and enhancing them with different flavors and seasonings for generations. Because of the endless list of derivatives, hundreds of different sauces are possible. Once you know the basic mother sauces, you too can begin creating your own signature sauce. Creating the Five Mother Sauces. Bchamel Sauce Bchamel sauce, or white sauce, was a sauce most often served to the rich or to royalty. Made out of a roux of flour, boiled milk and butter, the creamy white sauce added a smooth touch to white meats such as chicken, vegetables and eggs. In the years before refrigeration, milk products were rarely used in the recipes of the average French housewife. Veloute Sauce Veloute sauce is often called the fat white sauce or rich white sauce. This is a white sauce with a blondish color that starts with chicken, veal or fish stock that has been thickened with a white roux. Common derivatives of this sauce include allemande sauce veal, supreme sauce chicken, and vin blance sauce fish. For example, allemande sauce is based on veal veloute with egg yolk and cream, while supreme sauce is a chicken veloute that has been reduced with heavy cream. Vin blanc sauce is a fish veloute enhanced with herbs, butter and shallots. Brown or Espagnole Sauce This sauce starts with a dark brown roux, veal stock, beef, bones, vegetables and seasonings. It is heated, skimmed and reduced. After the initial reduction, tomato sauce is added, and the sauce is further reduced. The entire process is time consuming, taking hours if not days until the sauce is ready. The flavor of Espagnole sauce is concentrated and intense, so it is rarely served directly on food.