Liquid

A liquid ingredient provides the body or base of most sauces. Most classic sauces are built on one of five liquids or bases. The resulting sauces are called leading sauces or mother sauces.

• White stock (chicken, veal, or fish)—for velouté sauces
• Brown stock—for brown sauce or espagnole (ess pahn yohl)
• Milk—for béchamel
• Tomato plus stock—for tomato sauce
• Clarified butter—for hollandaise

The most frequently used sauces are based on stock. The quality of these sauces depends on the stock-making skills you learned in Chapter 8.