I was going to write about Italian cheeses then had to change my mind (I will do a piece on triple-cream cheeses when I get the stuff I ordered....but, wouldn't you know it, the French postal system stinks...or else they're striking, as usual). It occurred to me that I should do a piece on sauces since they are the soul of French cooking. To become a good saucier, one has to learn for years about the complexities of making a stock, managing a roux, understand liaisons, think emulsions, perform reductions, produce a demi-glace and many other duties related to make your dish stand out.
The word "sauce" is a French word that means a relish to make food more appetizing. Sauces are liquid or semi-liquid foods devised to make other foods look, smell, and taste better, while paying much attention to its digestive properties. Because of the lack of refrigeration in the early days of cooking, meat, poultry, fish, and seafood didn’t last long. Sauces and, ahem, gravies were used to mask the flavor of tainted foods.
Cross-posted from La Vida Locavore.
But before you embark on the world of sauces you must know how to make a stock, and not just a passable one but a good, robust and flavorful stock. If you thought that all it takes is throwing a few vegs and bones together with water and boil to the other side of eternity, you're seriously mistaken. If the sauce is the soul of a dish, then the stock would be its spine. A bad sauce derives from a badly made stock. Period. You can also purchase a fairly good product if pushed for time, but I would not settle for less than an organic brand, and for this, Google is your friend.
There are five basic stocks: brown (beef or veal or both), game, chicken, vegetable, and fish/shellfish.
I'll start with the brown stock, a must have if you're making a kick-ass demi-glace. First you have to get good ingredients such as freshly cut beef or veal bones with some meat left on them. One of the easiest way is to ask your butcher to set aside five or six pounds of beef or veal shanks, one inch thick, as well as a few beef marrow bones cut the same. To make a pint of demi-glace you will need three pounds of mixed vegetables cut into rough cubes: carrot, onion, leek, turnips. Add to this a large handful of parsley, two or three sprigs of thyme, a couple of bay leaves, and about six to ten garlic cloves, unpeeled. To this you would add two or three tablespoons of coarse salt and a few black peppercorns. A few knobs of butter and a pint of red wine completes the stock. Pre-heat the oven to 220C. Place the bones in a large roasting pan and put into oven for about thirty minutes to brown, turning the bones occasionally so they cook evenly.
Remove the bones from the roasting pan, de-grease the juices with a small ladle, and then deglaze the pan with the red wine, and set aside. In a large stock-pot heat the butter and drop the vegetables. Toss around till the vegs are coated with the butter then add the bones, the wine, the parsley, thyme, garlic, bay leaves, salt & pepper, and cover with five liters of water. Bring this slowly to a boil, skimming the scum as it arises to the surface. Leave the stock at a rolling boil for about thirty minutes to reduce and intensify. Reduce the flame dramatically and simmer for another hour. That's your basic brown stock. When it's done sieve the whole thing into another pot or large glass jar and set aside to make a demi-glace, the recipe will be given next week.
Nothing is easier than making a vegetable stock: there are no excuses left. It's so simple that you can make this with your eyes closed.
The vegetable quantity differs from the brown stock: more root vegetables are needed to make a perfect base for soup or sauce or coulis. To make, say, two liters of it you'll need the following: four large carrots, four onions, four turnips, two leeks, one fennel bulb, four celery stalks, one large sweet potato, one pound of baby potatoes, unpeeled, and if you can find green beans, add a large handful to the pot. And at least two heads of unpeeled garlic, two sprigs of thyme, a handful of flat parsley and two bay leaves. Have your favorite olive oil bottle on standby.
Wash the vegetables thoroughly and chop them up.
Pour some olive oil into a large saucepan, over medium heat. Add the chopped vegetables and cook for about twenty minutes or until the vegetables are golden. Add six to eight liters of water, parsley, bay leaves, thyme, peppercorns and garlic. Cover the mixture and bring it to a slow boil.
Reduce heat to the lowest temperature and simmer the mixture for approximately two hours, occasionally skimming. Strain the mixture and discard the vegetables. And it's done. Sometimes I add either green or yellow lentils to this, it imparts a little extra. The boiled vegetables can be given to the pets, or use as compost. This is a good stock from which you can make a great veg curry, a soup, a veg ragout etc...
I love making fish and shellfish stocks. The smells permeate the kitchen and drives the pooties crazy. The following recipe is for a shellfish stock that will make a sensational bisque providing you can find one pound of fresh shrimps. Here's the deal: cook the shrimp in boiling water, peel and set aside the flesh, to be used in a bisque. Place the peels (incl. the heads and tails) into a roasting dish and stick into a pre-heated oven for thirty minutes. When cooked, pour a glass of white wine into it, sieve and set aside. You can do this with crabs or lobster shells as well. Never discard shells, it's great in soups, bisque and sauces.
For two liters of fish stock you will need: one pound of crabs, one pound of mussels, two pounds of rock fish, an the usual suspects for vegetables: two carrots, one leek, two celery stalks, two turnips, two onions, parsley, thyme, bay leaves, six to ten garlic cloves (unpeeled), one pint of dry white wine, a few knobs of butter, coarse salt & peppercorns. Pre-heat the oven to 220c (460F, I think) and place all the shellfish into a roasting tray (basically it's the same process as above, with the shrimps) and bake for half an hour. Pour the wine over it, sieve it and set aside. In a large stockpot, over medium heat, put a couple of knobs of butter and add all the chopped vegetables and herbs, salt & pepper. Add the gutted rock fish, the juice from the shellfish and water. Bring to a slow boil, again making sure you skim the top as you go...it is a labor of love! Cook for a further hour, slowly. It should reduce by more than half. Sieve the stock and set aside. With this you can make a bouillabaisse, a fish soup, a bisque and quite a few fish sauces.
Next week I'll reveal the secret of the perfect demi-glace...unless I get my parcel of French cheeses, in which case I'll have to eat them and review the lot....someone has to suffer!