It's getting hot and saucy in the kitchen

No, no. Don't worry. The subject of my blog hasn't changed to something more x-rated. Although, it's been quite a saucy week. :-)

Let me explain; it is getting hot in the kitchen, because this week, week 3, we finally turned on the stove in class. We are actually starting to cook. Hurrah. Why saucy? Well, it's been all about sauces. We've been talking about and cooking the five leading sauces, also known as 'Mother Sauces', and some of the small sauces derived from them. What I mean by that, is that the leading sauces are rarely used as sauces by themselves but by are forming bases for other sauces. To give you an example, let me start with Tuesday night's dinner where I made a Bechemel sauce (leading sauce) and turned it into a Mornay sauce (small sauce) by adding grated Gruyere and Parmesan cheese. Finished product - a lovely cheese sauce for Mac&Cheese.

broken sauce Hollandaise

perfect sauce Hollandaise

There are obviously, as with everything, exceptions to this rule and one such exception is sauce Hollandaise. It's a lovely rich but light egg and butter based emulsion that is quite tricky to make but rewarding to eat. Hollandaise needs practice because timing and temperature are crucial to create a coherent emulsion out of two things which don't naturally want to combine egg & butter. I have to admit, that I broke the sauce in my first two attempts for Wednesday night's dinner and in the end gave up and defrosted something else out of the freezer to make it a complete meal. When I talk about 'breaking' the sauce, it means that the egg and the fat (in this case clarified butter) separate and do not form the desired emulsion to create the light fluffy sauce. I've added a couple of pictures to show the difference. We did a failure analysis Thursday morning in class and it indeed helped me to identify where I made the mistake the night before. And I am proud to say, last night, at first attempt, we enjoyed my home-made Hollandaise with steak. If you don't like the combination with steak, try it with cauliflower or asparagus, particularly white asparagus. That's how I remember it from my childhood in Germany.

The night before last, I prepared some tomato sauce and served it over pasta with seafood. Making my own tomato sauce is nothing new for me; I prefer it to the store bought ones. But what was new for me is that this time, I used a food mill to puree the sauce and, I must say I found the texture to be superior to anything I previously pureed in the food processor and/or with the stick blender. I am still learning to appropriately describing the texture and taste of food, so all I can say is the sauce was 'yummy'; rich & thick from the fiber of the tomatoes but smooth and velvety because it had been treated much more gently. I hope that explanation makes sense to you as you read it. If not, treat yourselves to a food mill and try it.


The timing to experiment with all those sauces could not have been more perfect for this week. The temperatures outside have been extremely cold, and having these rich comforting dinners all week long has been ideal for the weather and, of course, it didn't do us any harm to eat a few more calories than usual. I am sure we needed them just for walking the dogs.

A beautiful lemon cut - Dent de Loup (Wolves teeth)

In addition to cooking sauces, I have also been busy practicing my knife skills throughout the week to be fit for tomorrow's first practical knife skills test.
The biggest challenge for me has been and still is to judge the sizes of the cuts correctly, for example a standard Pont Neuf cut for potatoes is 1/2"x 1/2"x 2 1/2". By the way, for me and you, a Pont Neuf potato cut is usually called a potato steak fry cut. Posh French name for something very down to earth but very nice. I love potato fries, particularly with mayonnaise. Something the German in me treasures very much, unlike the English tradition of eating fries with vinegar. Sorry, but  I've never been able to understand that combination. Very lucky for me though that in addition to making sauces in class we also produced lovely homemade mayonnaise. And if you never had it before, believe me when I tell you it's worth the extra effort. It's so much nicer and flavorsome than the store bought version. And of course, you can season it to your taste. I, for example prefer more lemon juice than vinegar in mine.

I hate to sound repetitive, but I have to get back to practicing my vegetable cuts. Only practice makes perfect, right? And guess what we will be having for dinner tonight. Vegetable soup pureed through my lovely new food mill. I will let you know how it turned out next week.