Simple Savory Sauces that go with (Almost) Anything

Appears in
Cooking One on One
Cooking One on One

By John Ash

Published 2004

  • About
For many home cooks (including me!) some easy grilling, sautéing, or broiling is about all we are up to after a busy day. But hardly anyone wants to eat a plain pork chop or piece of baked chicken anymore. If it seems too boring to eat something totally plain, and too hard or too time-consuming to cook something interesting, all too often we end up opting for take-out again.

The addition of a simple and flavorful sauce can make the difference between something ordinary and a memorable dish. Many feel that sauce-making is complicated and beyond the scope of the average cook. Well, it’s not. Several years ago I participated in the revision of the Joy of Cooking and one section that I took on was sauces. Lots had changed since 1974, the last time the book was updated. Italian cooking had replaced French as our European touchstone. Ethnic flavors and techniques from Asia and Latin America had become an integral part of American cuisine. And the identification of “sauce” with butter and cream, elaborate stocks, long reductions, and the technical demands of something like hollandaise, had been severed. The lightening, brightening, and expansion of our idea of sauces is one of the best culinary developments of recent decades; take advantage and see how sauces can enliven a meal without a lot of additional effort.