The 2 weeks since my last post have been incredible, I can't believe how fast it is all going and I wish I would slow down because I am having an awesome experience.
We have explored everything about sauces over the last 10 days. You know when people say "that's gravy" when something is really easy? Mmmmmyeah. Sauce is NOT gravy. Once you know what you are doing sauce is not that difficult, but it can be time consuming, at least in the early stage of production. There are 5 leading or "mother sauces" from which every other sauce, called small sauces, are made from by adding additional flavorings. For example, Hollandaise sauce is a mother sauce emulsion of eggs yolk and clarified butter. But add a vinegar/shallot reduction and some tarragon and you get Bernaise sauce.
Take milk, thicken with a roux (fat and flour) and a few other flavorings and you get Bechamel sauce. But throw in some shredded cheddar cheese, dry mustard and Worcestershire and you get an awesome homemade mac and cheese sauce!
Sauces are time consuming because some of them start with a stock made after several hours of simmering bones with mirepoix (onion, celery, carrot) and some herbs. The collagen in the bones of veal or chicken creates a gelatinous, mild flavored base called stock (not to be confused with broth). Take the stock, thicken it with a roux and you get another mother sauce-Veloute sauce. Then with the addition of other flavorings that can become Allemande, Mornay, Curry, Normandy, Bercy, Mushroom, Lyonnaise or Madeira sauce, just to name a few!! I tell ya, I have not looked at a chicken carcass or vegetable trimming in quite the same way! In fact, right now I have a small pot of chicken bones and mirepoix on a slow simmer so that I can have chicken stock on hand for practice over the next few weeks. It freezes great so its easy to keep around.
For those who want to know, the five mother sauces are Bechamel (milk), Veloute (stock), Espagnole or brown sauce (stock), Tomato and Hollandaise (egg).
Gravy is a beautiful thing too and has its place. Gravy is called an integral sauce because it is made from the juices released during the cooking of the meat. For example, turkey gravy is made from the juice given from the turkey while roasting and it is served together. The basic technique for this starts with the caramelized liquid in the pan that was given off from roasted meat and any vegetables cooked with it. I add mirepoix in the bottom of my roasting pan when I roast chicken so that my liquid will have additional flavor from the onion and carrot. I make sure that gets good and brown with some caramelization. You deglaze this with a flavorful liquid like wine or broth to get it to release from the pan and lift up the yummy bits that add flavor. You can then thicken with a slurry of water and cornstarch or a roux and sometimes cream or milk. Serve as-is or strain to get out any lumps. And you got gravy!
I also learned how to make mayonnaise by hand. It's great at a BBQs when you can put out a dish of homemade mayo, which is also what aoli is. This base can be flavored in many ways to compliment many sandwiches or burgers.
In addition to all of this we also learned how to truss and roast a chicken, learned about various families of vegetables, talked about herbs and had demos and tastings for Chicken Princessa and Chicken Fricassee-part of roasting and poaching demos.
If you have any questions about stocks or sauces, feel free to ask. I am certainly no expert but have some good basics to share. My over all grade is an A right now, I am doing well on my tests and other assignments and my hands-on production has been going OK but it takes time to learn what something is supposed to taste like so you can duplicate it. It my case, my sauces looks 100% correct but tastes about 80% correct, so that will be my mission for the next month. Taste, analyze, adjust and taste until I it tastes as accurate at it looks.
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