Stock-Based and Nonintegral Fish Sauces

The best fish sauces are integral sauces prepared using the methods in Chapter 10, in which a sauce is made at the same time as or immediately after the fish is cooked. In many restaurant or catering situations, however, it is impractical to prepare a sauce at the last minute. Over the centuries, chefs have designed sauce-making methods to deal with the constraints imposed when limited personnel are available to prepare dishes for a large number of people. The development of fish stock was the natural outcome of preparing integral-like sauces in advance. In one sense, stock-based sauces for fish are integral sauces made ahead of time with fish heads and bones.