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Have you ever tried to recreate at home those incredible, rich,
velvety brown sauces you get served at your favorite fancy
restaurant? They are typically served with tender filet mignon or a
big juicy veal chop with a side of mashed potatoes.
Or how about a spectacular cream sauce from your favorite seafood
restaurant served with sea bass?
If the answer is "yes" but the result was not so great, you
may be asking yourself, "Is it possible for a home cook to make
those same sauces in their own kitchen? "
The answer is "yes" and the good news is they are not
difficult to make if you have the right ingredients.
What is the secret to making great sauces at home?
The secret to making restaurant quality sauces at home is using the
same ingredients professional chefs use in their restaurants. And
the good news is most of these ingredients are easy to find in your
supermarkets.
For example, you can make sauces with condiments like mustards and
chutneys, vegetables including garlic and onions, fresh or dried
herbs, dairy products like cream or yogurt and the list go on.
Another group of ingredients includes stocks and stock reductions.
Professional chefs typically have a big pot of beef or chicken stock
on their stoves for soups and sauces. You can make them at home too;
it's not that difficult to make a good beef or chicken stock.
Or you can find a decent commercial stock in your local supermarket.
Just be sure to look at the ingredients closely so you aren't
paying for salty water with a little chicken flavoring.
Finding good stock reductions like demi-glace, chicken glace or fish
glace, all important ingredients for making classic sauces served in
high-end restaurants, may be a little more challenging but not
impossible to find. Again, you can make them yourself at home but
they take a lot of time and effort. However, the results are well
worth it.
More good news - all these ingredients are now available to home
cooks who don't have hours needed behind their stoves preparing
them. There are a number of companies now producing commercial
products for both professional chefs and home cooks. Do a seach
on your favorite search engine for "demi glace" to find on-line
sources.
How Easy Is It To Make A Restaurant Quality Sauce?
Take a classic recipe like Steak au Poivre, which translated means
steak with peppercorn sauce. You can make this sauce in less than
20 minutes if you have a shallot, some butter, peppercorns, parsley,
and a little demi-glace.
What is demi-glace?
Demi-glace is a rich concentrated brown stock that is carefully
reduced until it forms a deep meaty flavored glaze. Considered one
of the "Grand Sauces" or "Mother Sauces", get your hands on
some and you won't have to go out to dinner for a gourmet meal.
What about a cream sauce for grilled or roasted fish?
Again, you can make an amazing sauce that will impress anyone you
serve if you have a little butter, half & half, Parmesan cheese,
some fresh herbs and a little fish or lobster stock reduction.
Except for the stock reduction, everything else is available at your
local grocer. The fish stock you can make or find on the Internet.
The Myth
The big secret to making restaurant quality sauces at home isn't
HOW to make them but WHERE to find the key ingredients. Now that
they are readily available to all of us, don't be afraid to try
your hand at Chateaubriande Sauce, Veal Marsala or Seafood Sauce for
salmon.
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