What are the five sauces in the French haute cuisine that should be included in all French cooking? You see, there is this so-called mother sauces that are generally used in the classic French cooking, and they are important because they are flexible, they are tasty, and they can be added with veggies, herbs, meat, spices, and many more to create a rich texture and flavor. If you are looking for hundreds of variations of sauce, you don’t have to come up with hundreds of recipes either. Simply choose these five recipes and be creative! It is a guarantee that you can create almost anything with these five mother sauces, thanks to the simplicity and versatility. So, what are they?
Basic Facts about the Sauces
The first sauce within the five sauces in the French haute cuisine options is the Hollandaise sauce whose texture is creamy, smooth, and also velvety. The base is only made from butter and egg yolk with emulsification as the thickening agent. This sauce is better served while still hot and fresh, perfect for asparagus, poached egg, beef, fish, and light poultry dish. The classic flavors include Cayenne pepper, lemon juice, black peppercorns, salt, and white wine vinegar. Because of its simplicity and yet the rich texture and flavor, making one should be easy. For a single make, it should be enough for one meal course.
The second one is Béchamel sauce with its creamy texture that is known to enhance other flavors. This sauce is claimed to be the original and the source of mother sauces in French culinary world, made as the development creation of Veloute sauce. If you add some herbs, it is just perfect for veggies. This sauce is often used as the base of other sauces and you can certainly tweak it at your heart desire. The sauce has whole milk as the base with white roux as the thickening agent. It is perfect for steamed veggies or poultry, veal, pasta, fish, and eggs.
Who hasn’t heard about tomato sauce? This kind of sauce is used by almost all kinds of recipes, right? Well, this one won’t be different, especially with the fresh tomato flavor. The sauce is bright and rich, perfect for beef, eggplant, pasta, veal, polenta, grilled veggies, dumplings, and also breads. As one of the five sauces in the French haute cuisine, it is easy to fix, with tomatoes as the base and the roux as the thickening agent. Feel free to use tomato puree, pasta, stewed, or raw tomatoes as the base.
The next one is the Espagnole sauce, or also known as the brown sauce. The base is roasted veal stock with brown roux as the thickening agent. It is best served with roasted meat, such as veal, duck, lamb, and beef. It has a unique and rich flavor that melts in your mouth in the nicest way possible.
The last one is the Veloute sauce, which is believed to be the foundation of all sauces. The great thing about this sauce is that you can mix it with the other previous sauces or you can create a new variant. It is almost similar to Béchamel but it uses chicken stock instead of the milk. The base can be white stock, which means that you can use fish, chicken, or even veal. The last sauce from the five sauces in the French haute cuisine is best served with steamed veggies or poultry, fish, egg, veal, and pasta.
