Sauce Fest

Over the holiday weekend in Las Vegas, my family didn't do much gambling, but we certainly did a lot of eating. As I perused the menus of some of the country's most famous chefs, it was pretty exciting to spot several sauces that I now know how to make. Before culinary school, I didn't have even a vague idea of the ingredients in a Soubise or Mornay or Chasseur sauce. I found myself wondering what I used to do when I saw those terms on a menu...I probably asked the server to describe the unfamiliar sauce. On Sunday at brunch, I was able to inform my sister that the Mornay poured over her decadent croque madame at Thomas Keller's Bouchon was a Bechamel sauce derivative with gruyere and parmesan cheeses, and proudly added that I'd made it just the week before.

It was very fitting that I returned to school--still very full--on Monday morning to take my sauce practical. We had two hours to prepare two sauces assigned by the chefs, with no recipes. They could be any of the mother sauces or derivatives that we've learned in Skills 2. That's about 20 sauces total--a lot of recipes for me to study on the plane ride home. Fortunately, it was a pretty long trip back to Atlanta.

I was assigned Tomato sauce and Supreme sauce. Sure, I've made tomato sauce many times at home, but this is classical Tomato sauce. The kind made with diced salt pork. Still, it's a pretty straightforward sauce: render the salt pork, then cook finely diced carrots and onions in its fat. Add whole canned tomatoes, tomato paste, and a sachet. Bring to a boil, then cut to a simmer for at least an hour and a half.

My only problem was that I got it started too late. We only had two hours total, and first I had to gather and prep all of my mise en place for both sauces. Then, for some reason, I started my Supreme first instead of getting the Tomato sauce on right away so it could have simmered longer.

For the Supreme, I had to first make its mother sauce, a chicken Veloute. This begins with a blond roux, so I clarified some butter and added flour to it until I had the perfect peanut-buttery roux texture. It should look pretty much exactly like creamy PB--but don't be fooled. It tastes like starchy butter.

Once the roux cooked for a few minutes, I whisked it into hot chicken stock. For Supreme, you add heavy cream and lemon juice to the basic chicken Veloute, then monter au beurre, then season with salt and white pepper (so pepper flakes don't show up in the light-colored sauce). This one turned out perfect except that the chefs said that I added a little too much white pepper.

Today was our last day of Skills 2, which involved a final written test and a thorough deep-cleaning of the kitchen. Taking apart and scrubbing the stoves and washing every pot and pan= fun times! Tomorrow I'm on to Intro to Garde Manger. This is a classical term for cold foods: we'll be learning to make everything from salads to pates and terrines. I even spied some tasty-looking sushi on a few students' plates as I passed the current Garde Manger class presenting food for their practical. Sushi fiend that I am, I'm pretty psyched.