Quick-and-Easy Sauces to Make
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This may be called the Mother List: sauces you can quickly pull together on any weeknight. And these only take two ingredients. A few things that we’re not counting as ingredients here are water, salt, and pepper. You’ll turn to water again and again when making simple sauce in order to thin out thicker ingredients. Salt and pepper season everything to taste.
Brown Butter + Sage
This tried-and-true combination works alongside everything, from filled ravioli to chicken breasts. Grab a few tablespoons of butter (one per person served is a good rule of thumb) and heat it in a skillet over medium-high heat until the butter begins to brown, in about 4 minutes. (Keep a close eye on it – the butter can turn from fragrant brown to ruined black in a matter of seconds.) Stir a few pieces of thinly-sliced fresh sage and you’re done.
Oven-roasted Tomatoes + Garlic
Add another dimension of flavor to tomato sauce by roasting the tomatoes and garlic cloves in the oven. Or, as associate food editor Anna Stockwell puts it “the easiest, best tomato sauce ever.” Use canned, whole peeled tomatoes and cook in a 425 degree oven for 35 to 40 minutes, until the tomatoes are soft and jammy. Purée the roasted results in a blender and add to every weeknight pasta dish.
Tahini + Miso Paste
“I use tahini as a base for almost all of my salad dressings,” says assistant food editor Katherine Sacks. The combination is creamy, nutty, and salty. In order to turn these two thick pastes into anything resembling a sauce, you’ll need to add a fair amount of water to get things to a saucy consistency.
Pan Drippings + Wine
Roasting chicken, beef, or any other protein that releases deliciously fatty juices? Don’t throw out that fat when it’s done – you’re one ingredient away from an awesome sauce. Pour off all but a couple of tablespoons of fat and combine with a half cup of dry red wine over medium-high heat until most of the wine cooks off and the sauce has reduced to your desired consistency. Did you accidentally over-reduce, resulting in a thicker sauce than you envisioned? No problem, just add a couple of tablespoons of water to thin things out.
Whole Meyer Lemon + Olive Oil
Yep, a whole Meyer lemon. No need to peel the thing. Just drop it into a high-powered blender (like a Vitamix) and slowly add in olive oil until the sauce begins to hold together, about a ¼ cup for each lemon. The result is a bright sauce that packs an incredible balance between sweet and acidic. It pairs especially well with seared fish, pan-fried vegetables, and other light dishes.
Yogurt + Store-bought Pesto
Think of this as a spin on
Today’s The Day green goddess dressing. “I mean, what wouldn’t you put it on?” asks Sacks. Pairing the stuff with vegetables? Serve it thick with crudités. Cooking steak? Use it as an herbed butter alternative.
Soy Sauce + Sriracha
What happens when you combine salty soy sauce with America’s favorite Asian hot condiment (for now)? A slightly-sweet, slightly-spicy take on soy sauce. The amount of sriracha you use will determine how thick the sauce is – go thinner if you want to use the mixture as a dipping sauce for thinly sliced meat or vegetables.
Any Fruit + Sugar
Making a coulis sounds fancy and impressive
– until you find out it’s nothing more than fruit and sugar. In summertime, you’ll want to use fresh berries from the market. But during the rest of the year, you can pretend it’s July with the frozen stuff. Combine one 10-ounce package of frozen fruit (or the equivalent amount of fresh berries) with 2 tablespoons sugar. Purée in a blender or food process and pour the mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl, pressing on the solids.
Whipped Cream + Lemon Curd
Top anything with whipped cream and you’re happy. But fold in a few tablespoons of store-bought lemon curd to that whipped cream? Sweet, tangy ecstasy.
Sauces are one of the most mysterious aspects of cooking. Fundamentally, they are believed to be simple preparations but, when we actually taste a good sauce, we find it difficult to reproduce. This mainly happens because few people know how to go about making a proper reduction.
What does reduction mean?
Reduction is in fact the process of thickening a watery liquid using heat. On one hand, the existing water evaporates and, as a result, the liquid becomes denser; on the other hand, there are compounds which, when heated, tend to solidify. The basic concept, however, is always the same: we have some pan juices, maybe those of roast veal, and we have to make them into a sauce or gravy. How should we go about it?
How to Make a Delicious Sauce Using Reduction.
Cooking is the first step: remove the cooked meat and place the pan on a high flame. As soon as the liquid starts to bubble, it has to be stirred constantly with a wooden spoon. The principle is simple: the water will evaporate, concentrating the existing fats and proteins to create a delicious sauce. A dash of alcohol during the cooking process, whether wine or dry liquor, adds the aromatic residue that “sticks” to the bottom of the pan. This method is generally more than effective for most purposes, but is frowned upon in the most prestigious kitchens owing to a subtle, yet significant, defect – the heat tends to undermine the original aromas. Aroma and flavor, in brief, are spoilt by being further subjected to a high temperature.
Hence, the reasoning behind the use of cryo-concentration.
This cooking technique is based on the fact that water freezes at 0°C. So, by taking liquids with which water does not mix well – such as pan juices rich in fats (fats and water tend to remain separated) to 0°C, only the water will freeze and turn into ice crystals. Once these are removed, the water is eliminated without any need for heat. As a result, the liquid is “reduced” leaving all of its aromas intact.
In actual fact, in the case of cryo-concentration, the temperature must be some degrees lower than zero because if the liquid is not composed of water alone, the freezing point will be lower. This aspect, however, is taken care of by the Freeze Dryer, a special machine (costing about $3000) which will vacuum pack the liquid once it is frozen in a special bag. The final product is, to all effects and purposes, a reduction, but in a solid form and ready to be used for making a delicious sauce, possibly with the addition of melted butter.
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