Cream

During the height of nouvelle cuisine, reduced cream largely replaced roux as a thickener, becoming an almost universal base for white sauces. Because of its richness, today’s chefs are beginning to use cream more judiciously, and many of the reduced-cream-thickened sauces of decades past are being abandoned for lighter versions, in which only enough cream is used to contribute a smooth texture.

Heavy cream can be used to finish a sauce, to give it a smooth consistency and a more subtle flavor, but it becomes effective as a thickener per se only when it is reduced. Heavy cream or crème fraîche can be reduced and used in two ways: It can be reduced alone and used as needed as thickener for last-minute sauces; one of the most commonly used methods is to finish pan sauces with cream. Or the cream can be combined with the sauce base or cooking liquid and the two reduced together. This second method is best used for sauces made in advance.