Gravy and Sauces... 1671

PastaLover

Easiest way to learn it is to google "Mother Sauce" See there is a standard recipe for a type of sauce to which flavourings are added to create a mulitude of sauces of the same gendre. This standardized sauce is called a Mother Sauce and there are but a handful of them for european sauces. Example a cheese sauce...1 tbsp butter 1 tbsp flour 1 cup milk. heat over medium heat a pot; put in the butter and the flour. Stir and cook till you get a even coloured blondish paste and the flour looses it's raw taste. Add milk bring to a boil, then simmer till it thickens. Remove from heat and add 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese gradually-in stages; stirring until cheese melts and the sauce gets smooth...optional additions are mustard, nutmeg cayanne pepper (pinch of each). See the milk flour and butter is a mother white sauce. There are other strengths of it say 2 tbsp flour to 1 tbsp butter to 1 cup milk etc...creates a thicker sauce but basically it is the same idea-recipe. Now if you brown the flour it doesn't thicken as well and the browner the flour the less it thickens (think gumbos)...So it is a flavour trade off. Cooked Flour and butter mix is a "Roux". Just flour and butter mixes (uncooked) has a different french name which I forget, but is also used to thicken mixtures-fluids-broths.