Contemporary Fish Sauces

Today the best restaurants prepare either integral fish sauces or lightened versions that contain only a small amount of cream and butter—or even none at all. Although many of the ingredients and techniques called for in classic French fish sauces are still used by chefs, roux, large amounts of cream and butter, and even fish stock are giving way to more contemporary methods. Contemporary fish sauces differ from older versions in several important ways:

1. Fish stock and fish glaze have largely been replaced by court-bouillon or the cooking liquid from bivalves such as mussels, clams, or cockles. Many chefs feel that fish stock and especially fish glaze are too aggressive and fishy tasting.
2. The consistency of fish sauces is often much thinner than in the past. Contemporary sauces often have a consistency similar to unreduced heavy cream.
3. Much less sauce is given per serving. Today, a small amount of fish sauce is often served around the fish. Two to 3 tablespoons (30 to 45 milliliters) of sauce per serving is typical.
4. Vegetable purées such as tomato concassée, sorrel purée, and mushroom purée often constitute both the base and liaison of the sauce. They are sometimes combined with xanthan gum and Ultra-Sperse 3 to prevent syneresis.
5. Sauces are more direct and intensely flavored than in the past. Because much less sauce is used, an intensely flavored sauce will not overwhelm the fish.
6. Acidic ingredients, such as lime juice, lemon juice, assorted vinegars, and most recently verjuice, are used in higher proportions.
7. Court-bouillon is no longer prepared using a single standard set of ingredients. Chefs are eager to emphasize the character of specific vegetables, such as fennel or leeks, and will often prepare a court-bouillon with only one or two ingredients. Some chefs are even experimenting with vegetable juices as sauce bases and flavorings.
8. Vinaigrette-like emulsions of oils and acidic ingredients are newly popular.
9. Combinations of already prepared sauces such as beurre blanc, hollandaise-type sauces, vinaigrettes, and vegetable purées are often combined with fish sauces at the last minute.
10. Spices are more widely used. Chefs are looking toward the cooking of India and the Far East as well as the European cooking of the Middle Ages to devise new flavor combinations.
11. Chefs are experimenting with thickeners such as hydrocolloids. They are also using emulsifiers and emulsion stabilizers once relegated to industrial food production. Such emulsifiers allow the chef to build a hollandaise-style sauce vin blanc without egg yolks (the flavorful reduction is thickened with hydrocolloids instead) or to incorporate nonemulsified fatty liquids such as oils into an emulsion that would otherwise not hold them.