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What About Sauces?
Appears in
By Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page
Published 1996
Throughout history, sauces have evolved as classic flavor (not to mention textural and color) complements to a variety of ingredients. Sometimes the role of a sauce is to intensify the desired flavor; in other cases, it serves to add interest through contrast. The art of sauce making—and matching—is subject for a book in and of itself. In fact, those interested in the topic can do no better than to refer to James Peterson’s book Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making (see Resources).
Michael Romano describes stock as “the backbone on which you can hang other flavors, like herbs, in a sauce. It can provide the structure for a sauce, if it’s balanced. For example, if you’re making a wine sauce with an intense reduction, if the stock is off, the sauce will be off-balance. It takes tasting and tasting to get a sense of what needs to be done to make a sauce ‘right.’ And as a chef, you must be able to judge what to do. If you’re trying to get the right consistency just through reduction, you can end up de-naturing a sauce. You’re better off stopping and thickening the sauce when you’ve got the flavor right.”