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The Saucier’s take on Green Pork Posole…

23 May
The Saucier’s take on Green Pork Posole…

Today in A Saucier’s Take on Green Pork Posole… we will take a culinary classic and meld it together with a classic home cooked Mexican dish.

Posole is a beautiful home cooked and quick Mexican cuisine.  Usually quick, relatively speaking, a broth cooked in an hour.  I LOVE it..  I LOVE the flavors.  But I am a lover of stocks, sauces and beautiful rich soups so it was time for me to put the Saucier’s take on this classic.

So today, we tackle phase 1. The broth!

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The heart and soul of most classic French soups is the stock. I am doing a derivation of the classic brown beef or veal stock to meet my needs. I am replacing the classic beef knuckle or leg bones with a good, meaty pork “neck bone” from a local Mexican market. These consist of rib ends, chine bones and split spinal bones. As with any brown stock, you must roast the bones. You are bringing the maillard reaction into play. What is the Maillard reaction you say? I am glad you asked!!!

Definition:

The Maillard reaction is a culinary phenomenon that occurs when proteins in meat are heated to temperatures of 310°F or higher, causing them to turn brown. Named for the French chemist Louis-Camille Maillard who discovered the process at the start of the 20th century, the Maillard reaction is similar to the process of caramelization, where carbohydrates like sugar turn brown when heated.±

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Thank you Louis-Camille for your assistance tonight.

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I digress. I tend to do that. Digress? Oh yeah! Stocks! The classic Escoffier brown stock includes beef or veal knuckle bones or joint bones, mirepoix (2 parts onion, 1 part carrot and 1 part celery) tomatoes or tomato paste for acid and fresh herbs and dried spices such as parsley, thyme bay leaves and black pepper corns, which is then roasted or caramelized to a nice golden brown to bring out the bold flavors, with a splash of red wine and enough water to cover the whole beautiful mess. We are turning that on its head with the BROTH that we are making here. Time for another culinary term:

Bit of Culinary Knowledge:

Broth vs. Stock. A stock is a flavorful liquid made from bones, aromatic vegetables, water, herbs and spices. Stocks are the basis for many classic cuisine dishes and are generally not served on their own. Why bones? Bones and the connective tissue that surrounds those bones contain large volumes of collagen, a protein which will, when exposed to simmering water over a period of time, dissolve from the bones and tissues giving the stock its body and richness. A good stock, when chilled will be thick and resemble a gelatin dessert. A broth is a flavorful liquid made from bones AND MEAT, aromatic vegetables, water, herbs and spices. Broths can be components of a dish OR can stand alone as a dish on their own.

On track again. The broth we are making today replaces the beef bones with the afore mentioned pork neck bones with a considerable amount of attached meat. The classic mirepoix is being transformed into a sofrito.

Definition:

Sofrito is the secret ingredient in many Latin Caribbean dishes and it’s so easy to make. It’s a versatile, aromatic puree of tomatoes, peppers, cilantro, onions, and garlic. ±±

To the onion, carrot and celery combination, we add poblano chilies and garlic. So while not meeting a classic definition of a sofrito, as it does not contain tomatoes, nor is it blended, it’s also no longer a mirepoix.

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Next, we are replacing the parsley stems and fresh thyme with more classic Mexican ingredients of oregano sprigs and coriander. I happen to have cilantro on the back end of its productive life and is therefore now going to seed. And yes, those seeds are coriander seeds. Completely different flavors. With the fresh coriander seed, you still get the hint of cilantro with a very bright coriander flavor. The peppercorns are enhanced with dried coriander seed and dried cumin seeds as well as the fresh bay leaf that we have in our back yard garden. It’s pretty amazing that fresh bay leaf actually tastes like something more than notebook paper!

Next replacement? We are making a green posole, and one of the basics of that is the tomatillo salsa that is added to the soup at service. We are incorporating tomatillo in place of the tomato for acidity. This will bring that signature tartness of the tomatillo to a bold flavored broth.

Last but not least. Wine. The tannic and fruity red wine is replaced by a dry white wine. We still cook the alcohol out but we have that little extra sweetness, without coloring the broth.

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So now, as I type away on this bad boy, we will let it cook overnight for further processing tomorrow. A good brown stock needs a MINIMUM of 8 hours with those thick bones. The pork bones are not near so big, so you could get away with less cook time. We will give it the full time to extract that maximum flavor from the vegetables and meat and as much of the collagen as possible from the bones. One last important factor with a stock. We do NOT boil stocks! We simmer stocks, starting with cold water to more slowly dissolve the proteins without setting them, and bring up to just a simmer.  How much water?  Just enough to cover.

On that note? It’s been a long day and my posole broth has several more hours to brew!

±http://culinaryarts.about.com/od/glossary/g/maillard.htm

±±http://latinfood.about.com/od/beginnerrecipes/ss/sofritosteps.htm

 
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Posted by on May 23, 2015 in Uncategorized

 

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Culinary 101 – Fish Stock

11 May
Culinary 101 – Fish Stock

After a long absence in posting, I am back in the saddle.  First things first.  I just finished teaching my first semester of Saucier at Collin College.  It has been a pleasure to work with my eager students.  Now that we are done with the pleasantries, it’s time for the nitty gritty.

Back to the basics again, we are going to a fundamental that we cover in the first few days of Saucier.  Stock.  Today, fish stock.

Of the primary stocks, this is the easiest, fastest and most convenient stock to make.  It is also the most pungent stock, so be prepared to have your home smell like a seafood shop for a day.  Why do I need fish stock, you ask?  Do you cook fish?  Do you like it dry?  Do you make gumbo or fish soup?  If the answer is yes, and it very well is if you are reading the blog, then you NEED fish stock.

Mise en place.  That word will keep popping up forever and ever and ever.  Simple mise en place today:

10 lb. fish bones (lean fish)

1 lb. mirepoix

8 oz. onion

4 oz. carrot

4 oz. celery

1 bay leaf (fresh is best)

6-8 pepper corns

2-3 parsley stems

1 or 2 whole cloves

1 gal cold water

24 fly oz. white wine

1 large stock pot 12 qtr. or larger

1 fine strainer and cheese cloth or fine chinoise

Fish bones.  Either fish bones you clean yourself, or that you purchase from your friendly neighborhood fish monger.  Today we have a combination of red snapper and pike.  You want a lean fish for this application.  Good fish for this are red fish, red snapper, pike, bass, flounder, sole, halibut or cod.    What to avoid?  Fatty, oily fish such as salmon, mackerel, tuna or trout.  The fatty fish have a more complex and intense flavor that just does not do well with stock.  If you use a large fish like halibut, you stock will take longer to cook as the bones are larger.  We are excluding the use of shell fish today.  We will cover the usage of shellfish bits in stock and other vital applications in another episode.

Mirepoix.  The classis mirepoix takes two forms.  The common first ingredient is onion, common second is celery and the most used third being carrot.  The second form of the French mirepoix is white mirepoix, which replaces the carrot with parsnip.  The classic fish stock contains this variation.  Today I am rolling with carrots.  Why?  I happen to have them in the cooler today.  For our fish stock, we are going to do a fine chop.  This differs from chicken stock or beef stock.  Chicken stock allows for rough chop, and brown beef stock uses large chunks.  Why so small?  You are cooking this stock for 45 minutes to an hour.  If you have a large cut of vegetable, you will not extract the full flavor from the vegetable.  The exception being halibut stock.  Thicker bones take longer to cook, so a slightly larger cut will work.

Spices or sachet.  Tradition would be that you make a sachet of this combination of spices.  I don’t bother.  Why?  I am going to strain this stock anyway right?  Why waste the time on making sachet out of cheese cloth.  Why not use ground cloves or pepper you ask?  You are making stock.  Stock should not have little black or brown spots in it.

Water and wine.  Wine is considered optional.   I don’t consider it an option.  A nice dry white wine adds flavor to the party.  Flavor is good.  Water is your primary carrier for your stock.  Duh.

So it’s time to make your stock.

Easy stuff.  Put your ingredients in your stock pot.  Pour the wine in, and add enough water to just cover the bones.  If it takes more than a gallon, so be it.  Next, turn your heat on to medium.  You want to simmer you stock, not boil it.  You are going to simmer for 45 minutes to an hour.  During that time, if there is “stuff” and “foam” or “scum” skim it off the top.  That’s it.  You have gotten the effective flavor compounds from your bones now.  Next we strain it.  I use a chinoise, which is a very fine mesh strainer that is used is making sauces.  It tends to be much finer than the average home strainer.  If you do not have a chinoise, this is where the cheese cloth comes in handy.  Take your strainer and line it with a couple of layers of

cheese cloth.  Carefully pour your stock through and discard your

 bones and leftover stuff.

This particular application will make anywhere from 1 to 1.25 gallons of stock.  If you happen to have a walk in cooler you can keep your stock for up to a week.   You can also freeze it, and it will keep for several months.  Your next option is the one that I tend to roll with the most.  I reduce my stocks down to a glaze or a glace de poisson.

Making a glaze allows for easier storage of your stock.  It takes much less space to store 1 or 2 cups of glaze then it does to store

1.5 to 2 gallons of whole stock.  Reduction like this does tend to change some flavor profiles when fully reduced, but not so drastically that it does not taste like fish stock.   I will reduce my gallon and a quarter today down to about a cup and a half.  To

reconstitute, take about a ¼ teaspoon to a half teaspoon to a cup

of hot water, and behold, fish stock.

Variation:  Fish Fumet

Fish Fumet is a moderately more fragrant and flavorful procedure because you are changing the flavor profile by pre-sweating the bones and mirepoix and deglazing your pot with your white wine.  Because you are precooking the bones and the mirepoix, you can cut your stock cook time down to 30-45 minutes.

 
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Posted by on May 11, 2012 in Culinary 101

 

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Culinary 101 – Mastering the Brown- Sauce Espagnole

24 Feb

Culinary 101 – Mastering the Brown- Sauce Espagnole

Okay, so we have covered some of the more simple sauces, stocks and roux.  That covers 3 of the 5 mother sauces, Veloute, Bechamel and Tomate.  On the complicated scale, this is next in line.  Sauce Espagnole or Brown Sauce.

Your Brown Sauce is the basis for the rich and hearty sauces that are common place with the red meats and rich foods.  We all LOVE rich foods right?

Okay.  Now for the different stuff.  Your last two roux based sauces used Blonde and White roux.  Now we roll with the brown roux.  We are looking for color and flavor.  Not only that, this roux will add a twist.  You are going to make your roux with the veggies still in the pan!  Don’t fear.  It is not as complex as it sounds.  We are going to make a gallon of the good stuff today.

Let’s start with Mise en Place. Yes, I am going to continue to hammer that word.  It’s really that important.

For this recipe you need the following:

  • 1 lb. onion, medium dice (remember how to dice an onion?  No?  Check out the meat loaf article for a refresher)
  • 8 oz. carrot, medium dice
  • 8 oz. of celery, medium dice
  • 8 oz. butter
  • 8 oz. bread flour
  • 6 qt of your brown stock (warm)
  • 8 oz. tomato puree
  • Sachet of the following
    • 1 bay leaf
    • 1 sprig fresh thyme
    • 6-8 parsley stems
    • Tie it into a bag of cheese cloth bag

Okay.  Time for some culinary talk.  What is a medium dice?  We are not talking about what you toss on the craps tables, and that word is tossed around in the kitchen world like animal crackers in a day care.  Let’s get down to the technical side of it.  There are 2 different categories of square cut items.  Brunoise and Diced.  It’s all a matter of size.

  • Fine Brunoise is 1/16” x 1/16” square
  • Brunoise is 1/8” x 1/8” square
  • Small Dice is ¼” x ¼”  square
  • Medium Dice is ½” x ½” square
  • Large Dice is ¾” x ¾” square

Why do you want to cut things so accurately?  Simple answer.  When you are cooking vegetables you want them to all cook to the same doneness at the same time. If you have 25 different sizes of vegetable, you will have 25 different times that the vegetables will be done.  Now that we have addressed the size of the cuts, let’s make our sauce!

Sauté your Mirepoix….  Culinary term again huh?  Mirepoix is the base for the majority of all French food.  It consists of Onion, Celery and Carrot.  The ratio of this is 2 parts onion to 1 part each of celery or carrot.  A classic mirepoix variation includes using leeks instead of onions.  Okay, now sauté it until brown in your butter.  One more time with the culinary terms, cause I just don’t have enough to tell ya right?  Sauté.
Sounds simple enough right?  Sauté is defined as cooking quickly in a small amount of fat.  The key word there is small.  You want medium high heat and small amount of fat; otherwise you are just frying your food.

Now back to your regularly scheduled food program.  Now that you have your well browned vegetables, add your flour.  Cook your flour to a brown roux.  You want the roux to be the color of milk chocolate.  Watch your roux carefully.  The darker it gets, the quicker it will cook.  It is real easy to go from brown to burned.

Now that the roux is brown, it’s time to start with the stock.  Gradually stir in your WARM brown stock; putting it in cold to your hot roux can cause clumping; and your tomato puree, stirring constantly until the pot comes to a boil.  Now reduce your heat to a simmer, and add your sachet.  Skim of whatever foam, fat or other things from the top, and cook slowly uncovered, for about 2 hours, or until it reduces down to about 1 gallon.

Now that it’s all done, you need to strain out the “stuff” that’s left over.  I use a china cap, lined with cheese cloth or a chinoise strainer.  If you do not have one of these tools, don’t worry.  Grab the biggest colander you have, and line it in several layers of cheese cloth.  Put the colander over your container of choice and slowly pour your sauce into the container.  When you are down to the cooked veggies, you can press them gently with a ladle to get the good juice out, but don’t press them through the strainer.

Cool your sauce and cover it.  Now you can use this wonderful mother sauce to make a TON of things.  The most classic first thing?  Demi-Glace.  That yummy, rich brown stuff that is common on French meat.  Easy stuff.  Mix equal parts Brown Sauce and Brown stock.  Cook it until it reduces by half.  Strain it just like you did your Brown Sauce, and you have Demi.

What other wonderful classic sauces can you make?  Here are a few:

  • Sauce Bordelaise:  1 cup red wine, reduced ¾, 2 oz. shallots, ¼ tsp. crushed peppercorns, pinch of dried thyme, 1 bay leaf, add 1 qt demi-glaze, simmer 20 minutes, and strain, finish with 2 oz. of whole butter.
  • Sauce Robert:  Cook 4 oz. onions without browning in butter.  Add 1 cup white wine and reduce 2/3.  Add 1 qt demi-glaze simmer 10 minutes.  Strain and add 2 tsp. dry mustard and a pinch of sugar dissolved in a little lemon juice.
  • Sauce Diable:  Reduce by 2/3 1 cup white wine, 4 oz. shallots, ½ tsp. crushed peppercorns, add 1 qt demi-glaze simmer 20 minutes.  Strain and season with cayenne pepper.
  • Sauce Madeira:  Reduce 1 qt demi-glaze by ½ cup.  Add 3 to 4 ounces of Madeira wine.
  • Port Wine:  See Madeira.  Substitute Port Wine.
  • Mushroom:  Sauté 8 oz. mushrooms and 1 oz. shallots in 2 ounces of butter until browned.  Add 1 qt of demi-glaze and simmer 10 minutes.  Add 2 oz. sherry and a few drops of lemon juice.

The varieties of small sauces are as varied as the ingredients that you can imagine using.  Don’t be afraid of the sauce man!

 
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Posted by on February 24, 2012 in Uncategorized

 

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Culinary 101 – Stocks and Sauces – Bechamel and Veloute

25 Jan
Culinary 101 – Stocks and Sauces – Bechamel and Veloute

Culinary 101.

Okay.  So it was one of those days.  Nothing fancy on the menu tonight.  It’s hockey night.  Kids in the door, chow down hard and fast, and out the door.  What did they chug down?  I did make Sourdough Ham and Cheese Panini’s tonight.  I digress.  Nothing spectacular on the menu, so we will start to cover some of the basics.

I want to go to the more “fun stuff” of sauces, but ya gotta start with the bare bones.  Literally.  Stock.  Particularly, chicken and beef/ veal stock.  Without those two most basic liquids of the culinary gods, you cannot build any sauces, or for the most part, not do too much of anything.

Let’s go easy first.  Chicken stock.  Simple stuff really.  Chicken, water, a mix of veggies and herbs, and time.  I do chicken stock at home as a dual purpose thing.  I get cooked chicken, and I get a nice flavorful and rich stock.  Since your average home kitchen cannot come up with a 40 pound case of chicken carcasses, we will get ourselves a bag of chicken leg quarters.  You can usually get a 5 or 10 pound bag of random sized chicken leg quarters for a really cheap price.  The traditional method calls for just the bones.  Since you are using meat on the bone chicken, you will do this in steps.

Put the chicken in a cold empty stock pot.  The biggest you have.  If you are using all 5 pounds of the chicken, you will need two large yellow onions, 2 large carrots and 1 head of celery.  Cut your veggies.  You don’t have to be fancy.  Peel the onions and cut into quarters.  Cut the carrots into about 4 pieces, you don’t have to peel them. Cut the celery into about 4 or 5 cuts.  Use the root and leaves.  Next get 4 or 5 stems of fresh thyme, bay leaves and parsley.  Put everything in the pot.  Fill the pot until you have covered your chicken and vegetables.  Now cook it.  Low and slow.  Bring your pot to a simmer and cover it.  Cook it about 35 to 45 minutes.  Come back and check to make sure the chicken is fully cooked.  Now for the hot stuff.  Wear a couple of pairs of latex gloves to help shield your fingers.  Pull the chicken from the pot and pull the skin off, put the skin back in the pot.  Pull the meat off the bones.  Put the bones back in the pot.

Now we cook some more.  Cover the pot and leave it overnight.  You want to be able to pull the bones out of the water and have them be soft and easily breakable in your hands.  Why you might ask?  You are cooking the connective tissue and collagen from the bones and joints.  What is collagen you might ask?  Collagen is the protein that is contained in the bones and the connective tissues that binds everything together.  When you slow cook the bones and connective tissues, you denature the proteins and allow them to permeate your stock.  This gives it a nice rich texture and body.  Now you have chicken stock mixed with bones and used veggies.  Strain the whole thing in your finest strainer, and refrigerate your stock.  Throw the rest away.  No use for it anymore, you cooked all the good stuff into the stock.  After the stock as sat overnight, the fat that was cooked out will have congealed at the top.  Put it aside.  You can cook with it.  Cook with and enjoy your chicken stock.

Now for the more complicated variety.  Brown stock.  For this you will need bones.  Beef or veal leg bones are your best bet.  You can ask your local butcher shop to hold bones aside for you, they are usually happy to do so.

You will need the same pot as with your chicken stock.  Your same vegetables prepared the same way.  Here is the big difference.  You are going to “precook” them all.  Get a couple of sheet pans and layer them on to cover.  Put your veggies on top of the bones.  Now you are gonna roast them.  Put them into your oven at 300 and bake them.  It’s gonna take some time.  If you can stand it, 5 to 6 hours.  You are trying to brown and develop flavor in the bones.  Your veggies will take color too.  This is a good thing.  If your veggies start to look too far gone pull them out and set them aside.

Now we proceed as with the chicken stock.  Same herbs, same water.  No issues with pulling meat this time.  But, this takes more time too.  You are cooking some pretty heavy duty bones.  When the color is cooked out of the bones and the stock is dark and rich, you are done.  Roll the same procedures as with the chicken stock, except you can still cook the bones one more time for a white beef or veal stock.

Guess what.  You have large volumes of liquid to store.  That can be a pain in the butt to deal with.   There is a solution to that too.  Cook it down more.  Figure out how much you have to start with.  You will need to know what your ratios are to make it stock again.  Cook it down, uncovered until you can fit it into the container of your choice.  Note your final volume so you can reconstitute your super concentrated and reduced stock or Glaze back to regular strength.  You can use or freeze at your leisure.

What is next?  The fastest stuff you can cook.  Fish stock, or fish fumet.  Caution.  Your house will smell like a fish shop for a few days after you cook it.  You will need the same basic stuff.  You need bones.  Ask your fish monger at either your local grocery or your favorite fish shop.  If they filet their own fish, you can get the bones.  They will give them to you.  My favorite bone for fish stock is halibut.  Why?  Tends to be a bigger fish, more girth to the bones, and allows a slightly longer cook.  You need the same veggies.  Cut them a bit finer this time, you are not cooking it as long.  Use the same herbs, parsley, bay and thyme.  The difference is using 1 half a lemon and about half an ounce of peppercorns.  Bring to a simmer and cook for 45 minutes to an hour.  If you do use halibut, you can cook it for up to 2 hours.

Part deux.  Roux.  Pronounced roo.  Simple stuff really, flour and butter.  It’s all a matter of color.  Use equal parts of each.  If you use 1 tablespoon of butter, use 1 tablespoon of flour.  Roux is the thickener of choice for the vast majority of professional chefs.  You go into any kitchen you will find a big batch of roux sitting on a shelf or in the cooler.  Start with the butter.  Over medium heat, melt your butter.  Keep it cooking until the bubbling has stopped.  Why?  You are cooking the water out of your butter.  American butter, by law, must contain at least 80% butter fat.  So considering the 1 or 2 percentage that is butter solids, that leaves 18% on average water.  When you mix flour and water, you get glue.  You don’t want glue in your roux.  Hey.  That rhymes!  Okay.  Now for the roux.  When the bubbling is done add your flour to the pan.  Start whisking.  Keep whisking.  You are coating the individual flour granules with the butter fats.  Keep the roux cooking at a low and slow pace.  You will start to see it change colors.  This is good.  You are developing flavor.

There are 3 plus 1 basic colors of roux.

  • White
  • Blonde
  • Brown
  • And plus 1 for our Cajun friends, Black

White roux is the “youngest” of your roux.  Cook it just long enough to cook the raw flour flavor out of it.  Blonde roux is just that.  Cook it until it just takes on a nice straw like color.  Brown roux is the next step.  Cook it until it is light brown.  Each roux will have a distinct nutty aroma.  The longer the cook, the more potent the aroma.  Last but not least is Black roux.  Cajun stuff.  Brown roux cooked until it is just on the right side of not being burned.  This is a major flavor and thickening component in the classic Cajun dish, Gumbo.  Mmmmmmmm  gummmmboooo…..  Sorry. Homer Simpson moment there….

You have your roux.  You have your stock.  Now we can make sauces.

What did the ol’ culinary instructors beat into the impressionable minds of the lowly first year culinary students?  Sauces.  Not just any sauces, but the “Mother Sauces.”  What are the Mother Sauces?  They are the base for any and everything in French cuisine.  Established by Georges Auguste Escoffier, the grand-father of the modern French cuisine, the mother sauces consist of the following:

  • Sauce Veloute
  • Sauce Bechamel
  • Sauce Espagnole
  • Sauce Tomate
  • Sauce Hollandaise

From these sauces, there are as many varieties of small sauces as there are chefs that cook them.  Since I have droned on for a while now, we will look at two of our five sauces today.

Sauce Veloute is the most basic of the 5 sauces.  It’s simple stuff.  Roux and stock.  Use the blonde roux that you have stashed aside.  For every 8 ounces of blonde roux, use 2 ½ quarts of your reserved chicken, fish or white veal stock.  Heat your roux over a medium pan, then gradually whisk in your stock.  Increase the heat to bring the mixture to a boil.  After it does boil, the traditional recipe call for reducing the heat to a low simmer and cooking for an hour, adding stock as needed to get your consistency.  When you are done cooking, strain it through your finest strainer.  This sauce is not traditionally seasoned, as it is almost always an ingredient in another recipe.

Sauce Bechamel is the second level technical stuff sauce that the home cook can make.  You want to make or use your reserved white roux.  Instead of using stock, you will be using milk.  The roux part was easy.  To make your sauce you will need a small white or yellow onion, 1 or 2 whole cloves and a bay leaf.  For every 8 ounces of roux, you will need a half gallon of milk.  Set your ratios from there.  You will want to scald the milk.  That means you are going to put it in a pot and boil it.  After it boils, turn it off and let it cool a bit.  Into your nice hot white roux, you are going to gradually whisk in your hot milk.  Be careful.  It will steam and spatter if you have your pan too hot.  Now that your milk is incorporated, you will add your onion, clove and bay leaf.  Cook your sauce for up to 30 minutes to impart the flavor from the onion and spices.  Strain it well, and season it with a pinch of salt and a little bit of fresh nutmeg and white pepper.  For my southern readers, this may sound like your traditional old fashioned white gravy.  You are right.  That is pretty much what it is..

Okay.  What do you do with these sauces?

Veloute:

  • Stir in mushrooms while cooking, strain it and finish with a little chopped parsley and lemon juice to taste and you have Sauce Poulette
  • Add a little tomato puree and you have Sauce Aurora
  • Sweat some white onions with paprika and reduced white wine, stir in your veloute and you have Sauce Hungarian

The options keep going from there….

Bechamel:

  • Finish your sauce with tempered heavy cream and you have Cream Sauce
  • Stir in Gruyere and parmesan until just melted and finish with a little butter and thin as needed with a little milk and you have Sauce Mornay
  • Stir in cheddar cheese, dry mustard and a splash of Worcestershire and you have cheddar cheese sauce

Again, the variations are as varied as the chefs that cook it.

Get creative with your sauces!  And remember as always.  Taste what you cook!

 
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Posted by on January 25, 2012 in Culinary 101

 

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