Reducing Acidity

Even experienced professional chefs are perplexed about correcting a sauce that has become too acidic as a result of using a poorly chosen wine for cooking or because of the reduction of acidic ingredients such as tomatoes. The obvious solution is to add sugar. Some sauces, such as long-simmered tomato sauces, benefit from a little sugar, which when used carefully will compensate for the lack of natural sugar that would have been present if the tomatoes were ripe.

In brown sauces, sugar rarely melds successfully with the other flavors and often tastes out of place even when used discreetly. For this reason, chefs usually prefer to introduce sweetness into a sauce by adding a small amount of fortified wine such as port or Madeira.