Time to get saucy
Certain side dishes and toppings seem to make everything taste better
Ladle sauce over an ordinary dish, and it’s ordinary no more.
Think gravy with roast beef, cranberry sauce with turkey, cheese sauce with cauliflower, chocolate sauce with vanilla ice cream and toffee sauce with date pudding.
A sauce can complement flavours, improve mouthfeel, contribute a smooth texture or add colour.
Many sauces are cooked, but some are made with raw ingredients. One such sauce is chimichurri, the Argentinian sauce used to marinate and accompany beef dishes. It’s a bright green blend of seasoned minced herbs, onions and garlic, vinegar and oil.
A roux is used to thicken some sauces, such as Béchamel or what most of us would call white sauce. Roux is made by stirring flour into melted butter so that the starch particles are coated in fat and cooking before combining with liquid. Béchamel, one of the classic French mother sauces, becomes Mornay sauce, otherwise known as cheese sauce, with the addition of grated cheese. It can be used to adorn steamed vegetables, sauce fish, or make homemade macaroni and cheese.
For strongest cheese flavour, use aged cheddar or other cheeses with good melting properties, such as gouda.
Cheese Sauce
Adapted from Wattie, Helen and Elinor Donaldson: “Nellie Lyle Pattinson’s Canadian Cook Book”. The Ryerson Press, Toronto, 1969.
50 mL (¼ cup) butter 50 mL (¼ cup) flour 500 mL (2 cups) milk (low-fat, homogenized, or evaporated) 150 mL (2/3 cup) grated cheese
In a heavy saucepan over mediumlow heat, melt butter. Stir in flour to mix thoroughly and cook for about a minute, stirring constantly. Add cold milk a little at a time, stirring with a whisk or wooden spoon until smooth. Cook until mixture thickens, and has no taste of raw starch. Stir in grated cheese to melt.
I also use roux, browned by cooking longer, when making gravy, although there are several other ways to thicken it. Stirring a slurry of cornstarch and water into the heated drippings from the roast and any water or stock needed to extend it is particularly useful to people who do not tolerate gluten.
No added starchy thickener is needed when making cooked cranberry sauce, as the berries themselves do the job.
Last week a friend served ham with raisin sauce, something I hadn’t thought about in a long time. I really enjoyed it, and will
share a recipe below. Like cranberry sauce, it requires no added flour or starch to thicken it.
Raisin Sauce
Adapted from Wattie, Helen and Elinor Donaldson: “Nellie Lyle Pattinson’s Canadian Cook Book”. The Ryerson Press, Toronto, 1969.
125 mL (½ cup) brown sugar 50 mL (¼ cup) water or apple juice 1 orange, juice and grated zest only 22 mL (1½ tbsp) white or cider vinegar Dash pepper 5 mL (1 tsp) Dijon mustard 125 mL (½ cup) raisins 15 mL (1 tbsp) butter
In a small saucepan, combine brown sugar and water or apple juice. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat to just maintain a boil and cook for 3 minutes.
Add orange juice and zest, vinegar, pepper, and mustard. Cook over medium-low heat for 5 minutes, stirring often.
Add raisins and cook until plump. Remove from heat and stir in butter. Serve hot with ham or pork chops.
It is easy to pick up a squeeze bottle of chocolate sauce for ice cream from the grocery store, but it’s less expensive and almost as easy to make your own.
Chocolate Sauce
Adapted from Wattie, Helen and Elinor Donaldson: “Nellie Lyle Pattinson’s Canadian Cook Book”. The Ryerson Press, Toronto, 1969. 125-150 mL (½-2/3 cup) sugar 125 mL (½ cup) cocoa 50 mL (¼ cup) cold water 175 mL (¾ cup) boiling water 15 mL (1 tbsp) butter 5 mL (1 tsp) vanilla extract
In a small bowl, stir sugar and cocoa to combine thoroughly. Whisk in cold water to make a thin paste.
Stir cocoa mixture into hot water in a small saucepan, and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens slightly and there is no taste of raw starch. Remove from heat, stir in butter and vanilla extract.
Makes 250 mL (1 cup) sauce.
These are a few of the hundreds of sauces used to dress up basic foods. You don’t have to be a saucier to prepare them; just follow the recipes.