What are the basic MOTHER sauces?

[cjs]

Chef1955 the "Sous Chef" is a name given alll of us as we increase our post numbers - as you are an "Assistant Cook" right now! Funny how fast we can be demoted!! I just play a sous on Discuss Cooking...in real life, I am an already retired chef. And welcome to the forums.

 

[rouxburnssuck]

Gracias folks... enlightening thread

So, wow... I loved the new world work up of the modern mother sauces... but with the advent of aioli, I guess that mayo'd have to be in there too... does anyone know where one can find a good, organized, resource for small sauce methedology? Thanks. === the new guy ===

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[wysiwyg]

I recommend you to check some books at your local library, find what is appealing to you and purchase what you like. The ones I have and love are The Escoffier (as someone said earlier, this book provides you with ideas rather than recipes) and The Pellaprat (more recipe oriented, great if you ever need help entertaining). They both have listed in excess of 120 sauces each.
In addition, the Larousse Gastronomique has a ton of information on sauces (I have a 1961 edition, more than 23 pages on this topic) and Julia Child's French cuisine has lots of detailed recipes.

 

[Sun123]

I am also really impressed with the depth of knowledge here! I'm Still workin on white sauce.Also agree that Mother sauces are bechamel, hollandaise, veloute, tomato & espagnole. i'm in culinary school & have learned this from some of my first days as a student.

 

[expatgirl]

This thread has been so helpful--------thanks for all the information y'all------I plan on checking our local used bookstores(we have lots) for an Escoffier copy when I return home on Friday. May have to go to alibris as a last resort.. And a warm welcome to all you newbies!!!

 

[jennyema]

So, wow... I loved the new world work up of the modern mother sauces... but with the advent of aioli, I guess that mayo'd have to be in there too... does anyone know where one can find a good, organized, resource for small sauce methedology? Thanks. === the new guy ===

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"Sauces" by the wonderful chef and talented writer James Peterson.

 

[jasonr]

I don't know that that's very true. Maybe in the past, but not anymore. Just look at Thomas Keller. And I'm sure there are other great chefs besides him running great restaurants that never had formal training.

This has actually been a topic revisited by my mind many times recently, as I'm about to finish getting my BS. Should I go to culinary school or not? It costs a lot of money, and from what I understood it simply teaches fundamemtals. Knife skills. How to braise. How to roast. How to saute. What is mirepoux, or the Mother Sauces? What is the proper method for making stock? Certainly these are all fundamental things to a successful kitchen and you would expect your chef and his staff to know such things, but it was only 2 days ago that I was talking with my co-workers, most of whom have been to culinary school, when I asked for clarification. What EXACTLY did they teach you to do at school? And the answer I recieved was overwhelmingly "We learned in 2 years at school, what you learned in your first three months working in this kitchen." And it made sense. There isn't a task in the kitchen that isn't built from some fundamental that must first be learned before being able to complete that task.

I felt the same way about law school. Even now, I have to wonder whether or not my skills as a lawyer would be any different today without law school. I'm still not sure about the answer.

But I'll tell you this: no matter how much time and energy I devote to baking (my greatest passion) and cooking (my second-greatest passion), no matter how many books I read and things I make, I can never quite achieve the level of skill that I want. Something is always missing.

Even in baking and cake making, where my skills are probably already at professional levels in some respects, I would KILL to have the kind of experience you get at a true culinary school. To me, there is nothing more precious than having a master watch over you and tell you what you're doing wrong and what you're doing right. You can't get that kind of experience from books.

My dream would be to run away to France and go to culinary school. I might even do it one day if I get bored of being a lawyer.

 

[wysiwyg]

jasonr and whoever wrote the quote you included,
This is just statistical information... for each Thomas Keller of the world, there are 10,000 Thomas Kellers wanna be. I did thought in my 20's about quitting Engineering School because I not just felt, I knew that by reading my texts and doing excercises I was able to learn faster than in class. However, my Mom told me to keep going because that single piece of paper I was going to get (My Diploma) was going to make all the difference. She was right.... My advise to you is the same: Don't quit school, get your diploma, and then pursue culinary school in France.

When you get to School, the Master Chef will watch over you and will tell you what is wrong with your final dish. He/she won't probably tell you what you did wrong, you will have to discover that on your own after doing the same dish 3 or 4 times at least.

 

[archiduc]

Mother sauces

Please list, and any info on each would also help.
thanks, Gary

Hi Gary,

What or who started this thread?

I`ve had a quick perusal of the posting and thought that it was maybe most appropriate to reply to you as you asked the original question.

First, let me say that I live in the UK and was trained in the French culinary tradition - just so that you know where I`m coming from.

Second, the "SAUCE MERE" or MOTHER SAUCES are basic sauces from which others are derived through the addition of other ingredients.

From my perspective, which may not be that of others, there are 5 sauce mere.

These are:
Bechamel - roux based and the liquid ingredient is milk infused with herbs and spices;
Veloute - roux based white sauce made from veal, chicken, fish stock or vegetable stock;
Espagnole - roux based made from browned flour and browned stock and from which demi-glace is then made.

Escoffier defines these as the three fundamental sauces.

In the 1934 edition of Ma Cuisine, Escoffier says of Tomato Sauce:
"Following this, we have tomato sauce, which also plays an important part in modern cookery" (page 17).

The two other sauces which make up the "Sauce Mere (Mother sauces) are, as I was taught:

Mayonnaise - cold emulsion of eggs, oil and acid ingredient, typically vinegar but may be lemon juice;

Hollandaise - warm emulsion of reduced vinegar and water, egg yolks and butter.

From each of these sauces variations may be made which are known as compound sauces.

Thus:
Compound sauce of bechamel may be sauce mornay,
Compound sauce of veloute - veal veloute - sauce allemande;
Compound sauce of espagnole - demiglace


One can also go to double compound sauces, thus the sauce mere of ESPAGNOLE can be made into demi-glace (first compound) and with the inclusion of additional ingredients it becomes a double compound sauce..

Compound sauce of mayonnaise may be tartare sauce.
Compound sauce of hollandaise may be Bearnaise sauce or Sauce Pau - which is the same as Bearnaise but uses mint instead of tarragon and is divine with lamb.

However, having said all this, some questions remain unaswered. Classically, the "mother sauces" do not seem to include tomato based sauces. Is this right? Although, as I`ve said I was trained in the clasical Frech tradition, I recognise that we are now in the 21st century and the art of cooking must progress and move on.

Also, remember, great leaps forward were made in French cooking when Catherine De Medici left Florence, Italy to marry the Dauphin of France in the 15 century and who have perfected the art of tomato based sauces?

Also, the "mother sauces" do not include any sweet sauces, thus an egg custard sauce, and any derivative, is not included and neither is any vinaigrette based sauce.

I don`t feel that I have really answered you question. I suspect that, for me, there remain the classic "mother sauces" which are savoury in nature. Tomato sauce and its variations are the great gift of Italian cooking and dessert sauces will have to be a separate branch!

However, I hope this will remain a hotly debated topic, if only because it gets people thinking about culinary history, the present and the future.

All the best,
Archiduc

 

[Baketech]

Is a sofrito considered a sauce? If so, where does it fit into the picture?

 

[jennyema]

I felt the same way about law school. Even now, I have to wonder whether or not my skills as a lawyer would be any different today without law school. I'm still not sure about the answer..

I agree in the sense that in some ways law school is merely a barrier to entry. BUT... Law school teaches you a lot more than practical lawyering skills (mine didn't really even do that). I can't imagine not having gone to LS.

My dream would be to run away to France and go to culinary school. I might even do it one day if I get bored of being a lawyer. ..

Me too. In fact I tried to do both a few years back, but there were too many conflicts. Still take evening and weekend classes though.

 

[jasonr]

I agree in the sense that in some ways law school is merely a barrier to entry. BUT... Law school teaches you a lot more than practical lawyering skills (mine didn't really even do that). I can't imagine not having gone to LS.

I guess I sort of agree, even though I have done my best to forget law school

I don't think I'd feel the same way about culinary school. I think it would be very practical to have actual classes with actual chefs teaching you how to do things. Law school is all theory, but by its very nature, I would think culinary school would have to have a significant practical element.

 

[ironchef]

Is a sofrito considered a sauce? If so, where does it fit into the picture?

A sofrito can be a sauce, but it is thought of as more of a base for other things.

 

[jpinmaryland]

Hello RouxBurns: You asked about an internet source for sauces, here are two that are pretty good. There is another one that attempts to list all of the minor sauces made from the mother sauces. I will try to track that down, but in the meantime these ones providde a start:

Sauce Recipes For Chicken Beef or Fish

History of Sauces, History of Mayonnaise, History of Béchamel Sauce, history of Hollandaise Sauce

 

[chefnaterock]

Mother Sauces

"It was the 19-th century French chef Antonin Careme who evolved an intricate methodology by which hundreds of derivative sauces were classified under one of four 'mother sauces': Those are: Espagnole (brown stock based), Veloute (white stock based), Bechamel (milk-based [or cream based]), and Allemande (egg enriched veloute). " Food Lover's Companion, 4th ed., Barrons Educational Series, Inc.: 2007 (p. 603). Later was added the fifth group of emulsified sauces, e.g. hollandaise, mayonaise, and vinagrettes.

I have also read somewhere that tomato sauces have also been added. You are getting a myriad of different answers, I hope my citation helps.

 

[Glorie]

This is very helpful! Thank you!! )

 

[GhettoRacingKid]

Wow this thread made my culinary head spin.

I would like to just throw in that in the last what ever amount of years there is alot of grey areas in jsut about everything. With all the sharing of information, techniques, ingredints, and so on and so forth things have changed and the culinary world will never be how it used to be where this is this and that is that.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

Though the world is constantly evolving, and changing, with sharing of, and access to more and more culinary information, the 5 Mother Sauces are still valid. They form the basis of a host of derivative sauces and are an important knowledge base. For even though there are great many sauces now available to all of us, the techniques for making the French sauces, and the small sauces that come from them, are used to make virtually all sauces, be it a sweet and sour sauce, which could be described as a veloute' based sauce as it is often made from chicken broth, with various starches and flavors added, to ketchup, which is in fact, a tomato based sauce, again with added seasonings and sugar (corn syrup). The Asian sauces and gravies are often starchy sauces built from stocks and broths.

The main difference I see in today's sauces is that corn starch, arrow root starch, tapioca, and similar products are often used in place of a roux as the thickening agent. But then again, flour slurries were used before cornstarch was readily available too.

Learn the Mother Sauces, and the various sauces made from them, and you will have the techniques for most of the world's great sauces.

Seeeeeya; Goodweed of the North