Cookbook:Sauces
Sauces are thickened liquid additions to a recipe, used to enhance the flavor or apperance, or to add moisture. In the 1800s, the French chefs Antonin Carême and Auguste Escoffier developed a systematic categorization of sauces, based on five "mother sauces". All sauces were considered to be a variation of one of these sauces. As other cuisines and ingredients have become more common to the world cuisine, the number of mother sauces had expanded slightly, but most sauces can be seen as a variation or adaptation of a few basics.
The sauces below are grouped by their mother sauce. The top five are the traditional mother sauces, with the modern additions following. Many of the mother sauces use a roux as the thickening agent. Roux itself is not really a sauce, as it would not be used alone.
- Béchamel Sauce - a white sauce made from a white roux of butter and flour, to which is added milk.
- Country gravy
- Vegetarian "Bacon" Gravy
- Velouté - a white sauce made from a light broth (fish, chicken or veal) and a white roux.
- Hollandaise and Mayonnaise - emmulsified eggs, oils or fats, and other ingredients, such as vinegar.
- Espagnole Sauce - a brown sauce made from veal or beef broth and a dark brown roux.
- Beurre Blanc - a reduction of vinegar and shallots, to which is added butter.
- Tomato Sauce - reduced crushed tomatoes, the mother sauce for any crushed or pureed vegetable base sauce
- Vinegrette - a mixture of oil, vinegar, salt and pepper
- Pesto - a paste made of nuts, oil, and herbs and spices.
- Soy Sauce
- Dessert sauces
See also:
- Household Cyclopedia Sauces - a collection of Public Domain sauce recipes that need to be converted to the Recipe template