Seasoning Sauces

The very origin of the word sauce, from the Latin salsa meaning salty, emphasizes its role in highlighting the flavor of a dish. For this reason a sauce should always taste too strong by itself; its flavor should be too concentrated to be palatable in quantity. If a sauce is to be reduced it should be lightly seasoned only, since it will become concentrated as the liquid reduces. As for specific instructions, Herman Senn best summed it up in his book, The Book of Sauces (1915): “It is most difficult to give any precise directions for seasoning ... Experience alone will teach a cook.”