The perfect sauce can take a dish to the next level of enjoyment.
You can find out how to properly prepare a brown sauce for meat dishes here.
Tomato sauces *, cheese
sauces,
hollandaise sauce, bechamel sauce ... On the one hand, there are countless different
sauces that you
can
adapt to the dish and your preferences
.
On the other hand, there are only a
few basic recipes
that you need to know in order to conjure up different variations.
It's not that difficult to cook a delicious, creamy sauce.
Nobody likes lumpy or thick sauces
.
Even if the taste is meaningless, you probably did something wrong.
So if you want your sauce to be palatable, or at best even tasty, the secret is to
pay
close attention to the
texture
.
Preparing sauces correctly: the secret lies in the roux
Experienced (hobby) cooks will know them, for some it is still a book with seven seals: the
roux
.
You can't make a smooth sauce without starting with a roux.
A roux is a one-to-one mixture of
flour and fat, for example a roast or butter
.
The combination allows the roux to slowly mix with the pan juices, for example from the seared meat, and thicken them instead of clumping them.
Also read:
Few ingredients, lots of taste: these sauces make every meal delicious.
How to make a delicious roux sauce
Now you know the reason for a roux when making sauces.
But how do you make a perfect roux?
As an example, let's take a brown sauce that goes well with many
meat dishes
.
First of all, you need the
roast set
after you sear the meat.
Deglaze with chicken broth or wine and keep this mixture from the pan or roaster.
Let them cool and remove any excess fat from the surface.
Don't throw away the fat, however, as you can use it on the roux.
Now mix four tablespoons of this fat (or alternatively use butter if you haven't fried meat) with four tablespoons of flour, stir until smooth and sweat it in the pan.
Seating
means nothing else than
letting
the
flour turn slightly yellow or brownish in the hot fat
.
Then slowly stir the set aside liquid from the roast meat and stock or wine into the roux and stir vigorously until it has
thickened
.
You have to pour here really slowly and at the same time stir properly so that no lumps form.
Now you can season the sauce with other ingredients such as cream and spices.
Also interesting: you
only need three ingredients for the best tomato sauce in the world.
Cooking sauce with roux: what to do about lumps
If, despite careful stirring,
there are
a few
lumps in your sauce
, that's no problem: Simply pass the sauce
through a sieve
.
Alternatively, you can
puree
the sauce with a hand
blender on a low setting
- but this method is not suitable if there are onions in the sauce.
Because then a bitter taste can develop.
Alternative to homemade sauce with roux: refine the ready-made sauce
If you have to go fast, you can of course also use
the ready-made sauce from the jar or from powder
.
You can also easily pimp up such sauces and
refine their taste
.
For example, by adding a few
drops of the meat juice to
the finished sauce
, this rounds the taste and the sauce goes better with your dish.
Also,
wine or broth
are good tips to lift the taste and to taste the sauce homemade.
Fried onions, fresh, finely chopped herbs or ground pepper also give your sauce the finishing touch.
(mad) * Merkur.de is part of the nationwide Ippen-Digital editors network.
Read more:
Secret revealed: With these tricks you can prepare the perfect sauce.
List of rubric lists: © dpa / Monika Skolimowska
