So you sit in a French restaurant at home or abroad trying to work out what's in the sauces. In Indian restaurants you have to watch for hot chilli. Menus get more and more complicated, including the English and French ones. Now legislation is obliging restaurants to list ingredients to protect those with allergies, or dieting, or driving. Does the food contain known allergens such as nuts? Some people are allergic to eggs. Is it worth paying extra for fish something special sauce? Sauce with champagne and ginger - ooh, that's different, sounds luxurious and yummy.
At school I was taught there are two basic sauces, white and brown. White sauces to match white fish and white meat such as chicken. Brown sauce or gravy from the juice or dripping of dark meats in casseroles. Sauce is thickened with flour.
For dessert, sauces are sweetened with sugar or honey and flavoured with fruit juice. Egg yolk adds the colour yellow to custard. Simple, really. Once you know.
But the French have five sauces. Just the basic ones!
What you are likely to see on a French restaurant menu or in a cookery book or magazine:
The famous five classic for basic sauces.
Here are two of them.
Béarnaise
Béarnaise sauce comes from the city of Béarn. Notice the up accent on the e, which tell syou that your voice goes up, so it is pronounced ay. Double vowel sound. Bay - ah.
The child sauce, derived from Hollandaise. Yellow, creamy sauce. Opaque (you can't see through it - opposite of transparent). Made with egg yolks. Also herbs.
That's all you need to read a menu and work out if it sounds good. You need to ask if you want to be sure if you are allergic to eggs or other ingredients. If you want the classic recipe to cook, check the basic recipe for detailed ingredients on Wikipedia. Recipes all over the net will give you substitutes if you cannot obtain ingredients or have dietary restrictions.
Let's look a bit more closely at Béarnaise. Not just any old butter. Clarified butter. Not a whole egg. Egg yolk. Emulsified. Help! What's that? An emulsion, like an emulsion paint, shaking oil and vinegar makes an emulsion or shiny mixture of oil suspended in the water. Gleaming, shiny from the oil. Ah.
Hollandaise
Sauce with white wine and lemon juice.
Then there's mayonnaise. Just egg yolk and oil, olive oil. Sorted. That's three of the five.
Angela Lansbury.
Travel writer and photographer. Author and speaker.
For more details about my name and yours see the next post. For more on sauces see the post after that.
At school I was taught there are two basic sauces, white and brown. White sauces to match white fish and white meat such as chicken. Brown sauce or gravy from the juice or dripping of dark meats in casseroles. Sauce is thickened with flour.
For dessert, sauces are sweetened with sugar or honey and flavoured with fruit juice. Egg yolk adds the colour yellow to custard. Simple, really. Once you know.
But the French have five sauces. Just the basic ones!
What you are likely to see on a French restaurant menu or in a cookery book or magazine:
The famous five classic for basic sauces.
Here are two of them.
Béarnaise
Béarnaise sauce comes from the city of Béarn. Notice the up accent on the e, which tell syou that your voice goes up, so it is pronounced ay. Double vowel sound. Bay - ah.
The child sauce, derived from Hollandaise. Yellow, creamy sauce. Opaque (you can't see through it - opposite of transparent). Made with egg yolks. Also herbs.
That's all you need to read a menu and work out if it sounds good. You need to ask if you want to be sure if you are allergic to eggs or other ingredients. If you want the classic recipe to cook, check the basic recipe for detailed ingredients on Wikipedia. Recipes all over the net will give you substitutes if you cannot obtain ingredients or have dietary restrictions.
Let's look a bit more closely at Béarnaise. Not just any old butter. Clarified butter. Not a whole egg. Egg yolk. Emulsified. Help! What's that? An emulsion, like an emulsion paint, shaking oil and vinegar makes an emulsion or shiny mixture of oil suspended in the water. Gleaming, shiny from the oil. Ah.
Hollandaise
Sauce with white wine and lemon juice.
Then there's mayonnaise. Just egg yolk and oil, olive oil. Sorted. That's three of the five.
Angela Lansbury.
Travel writer and photographer. Author and speaker.
For more details about my name and yours see the next post. For more on sauces see the post after that.
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