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The Five Mother Sauces
Date October 10, 2012
Author creative

The Five Mother Sauces

The Five Mother Sauces

The Five Mother Sauces

The Five Mother Sauces

“Live them, love them, learn them!”

I can remember my chef-instructor yelling that phrase at our class every day while in the sauces kitchen in cooking school.

“These sauces are of the utmost importance, and you will use them continually throughout your careers. They are also the foundation from which all other sauces are made…”

He was right. In order to be a chef, or even a great cook, it’s essential to learn how to make the five Mother Sauces. They’re not difficult to prepare, but they do require practice. One you master, or even get proficient at making the five mother sauces, you can literally create thousands of exquisite dishes.

Let’s take a look at the five Mother Sauces.

They are:

Tomato

Béchamel

Veloute

Hollandaise

Espagnole

*Tomato Sauce

We’ve all had tomato sauce before, right? Tomato sauces are used primarily for pasta, but can also be served on meats, poultry, fresh fish and veggie dishes.

Tomato Sauce

Tomato Sauce

Here is a basic tomato sauce recipe:

This is a lot of complicated information. Try making one of these sauces a week until you get comfortable with the procedure, ingredients, and end product. Don’t get discouraged if your sauces don’t turn out perfectly the first time; keep practicing.

Good luck!

Chef Chuck Kerber

Cooksandeats.com

chuck@cooksandeats.com

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5 Responses to The Five Mother Sauces

  1. Ruth Kittner says:

    Lovely instructions, Chuck. Thanks very much!!

  2. Chef Stu says:

    Where is the espanole sauce?

  3. Chef Stu says:

    ◾Béchamel
    Béchamel is a sauce which has a milk base and is thickened with a blonde roux. Commonly referred to as a “white” sauce the Béchamel is probably one of the most used of the base sauces.
    ◾Veloute
    A veloute is a white stock (veal, chicken or seafood) and thickened with a white roux . A veloute is commonly referred to by the type of stock that is used such as a “chicken veloute”.
    ◾Tomato
    A Tomate is a tomato based sauce thickened with or without a roux. The liquid in a tomato sauce comes from the tomato itself. Water or stock is added as the sauce cooks as this sauce sometimes cooks for longer times to bring out the flavors of the ingredients better.
    ◾Espagnole
    An Espagnole is a brown sauce classically using veal stock as a base and thickened with a dark roux. The base of an espagnole sauce is made from a stock of roasted veal bones and a roux that has been cooked longer giving this sauce a very strong taste. Espagnole is rarely used by itself because of its strength in taste.
    ◾Hollandaise
    A Hollandaise is based with egg yolks and butter and made by using a technique called emulsion. Mixing egg yolks with butter and flavoring with lemon or vinegar is brought together through whisking the mixture vigorously until the liquids that normally would not mix come together in a thickened pudding like mixture.

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