Day 6: French Lessons Plus Two Bottles of Wine Equals Many Small Sauces

Mirepoux (Meer-pawh), Sachet d'epices (sa-shay day peace), Glace de vinande (glahss duh vee awnd), Glace de volaille (voh lye), Glass de poisson (pawh sohn), Roux (roo) Beuree manie (burr mahnyay), Monter au beurre (mohn tay oh burr), Fond lie (fone lee ay), Coulis (koo-lee), Beurre noisette (burr nwah zett), Beurre blanc (burr blon), au Jus (oh zhoo)...

No, I was not a little tipsy in today's class... My fingers where not on the keyboard in the wrong place at the wrong time either All of the above French words (and pronunciation following) above are used in French Classical cooking to describe how sauces are enhanced, the name of the sauce and ingredients that may be called upon when starting a sauce or a soup stock. For example, mirepoux is an ingredient used to create a beef or chicken stock. Mirepoux is simply 50 per cent chopped onion, 25 per cent carrot and 25 per cent celery. A mirepoux can also be used as the base to start off a soup.

The topic in class today was mainly on stocks and sauces. I've made stocks before when making a homemade soup. Generally, my soups are chicken based. Most of the time, (because of lack of time) I use a store bought stock. Typically, purchasing one that is low in sodium. Chef tells us that after we learn how to make a stock, we will never by another store bought stock. Well, most of us are still wondering when we'll be getting in the kitchen. We are like little children waiting patiently for that piece of candy for being good at the end of the day... but there is no candy for us today.

Today, we learned about small sauces. The leading sauce or leading sauce plus secondary leading sauce is what gets us to the small sauce. There are white sauces, brown sauces, red sauces, butter sauces. There are mother (leading) sauces such as bechamel sauce, veloute, brown sauce or espagnole, tomato sauce, hollandaise and fond lie. Of the small sauces there are at least a handful that are more know. Mornay, cream, cheese, curry, mushroom, madeira, creole and Spanish are a few of the most common types of sauces. Some sauces call for wine as an ingredient ~ Madeira wine and port wine. Looks like a good reason to visit the LCBO in the near future.

Chef is going to make sure that we leave her course knowing how to prepare the basic and most common sauces to perfection... without white pepper. Chef does not like the taste of white pepper. She prefers black pepper and therefore does not mind that our white, brown, red or butter sauces will have black flecks in them.

Our sauces we are told will not be lumpy. Chef will show us how to avoid lumpy sauces. There are standards of quality for sauces. Consistency and body ~ smooth with no lumps, not too thick or pasty, thick enough to lightly coat the food lightly. Flavour ~ distinctive well balanced flavour, proper degree of seasoning, no starchy taste, Flavour should be used to enhance the food or to provide a pleasing contrast to the food. Appearance ~ smooth, shiny and good colour for the type of sauce it is. When a food is complemented with a sauce it looks so much more appetizing. Imagine a strawberry coulis drizzled over a French crepe filled with fresh strawberries and a whipped vanilla bean cream topped with a few mint leaves.

Tonight's homework is to start adding recipes to our bible from our text book ~ 19 recipes on stocks and sauces. Chef is preparing us for the kitchen with the recipes that we will be working on. By adding the recipes we will know what the ingredients are to help us prepare our menus. We also need complete the workbook on all chapters leading up to chapter eight (stocks and sauces). And, if we have time, to read the next chapter. Oh, and to work on a main entree of our choice with costing it out per portion showing all ingredients used to make it. No time to fiddle tonight!