"White sauce is a sauce that is fresh. It is the one that highlights the meat of the kebab the most," says Noé Lazare, the owner of the Gemüse kebab in Paris. It is based on yogurt. And since yogurt is slightly acidic, it counterbalances the fat in the meat. And he adds: "It's also better for digestion. »
In order to understand what is really in a white sauce, the restaurant cook shows us his recipe: he mixes a large amount of yogurt in a plastic tray, presses over a few cloves of garlic, adds the juice of a lemon, then drizzles with dried mint and dill, sprinkles with salt and pours olive oil. Then he stirs. The white sauce rests overnight before being arranged, at the time of serving, in a stainless steel "gastro tray" in the kebab window. "If you see the white sauce in a container like this, there's a good chance it's homemade," says the kebabe. But if you see a can with "white sauce" written then it will be industrial. »
"Because unfortunately for the world and for kebabs, industrial white sauce exists!" laments the cook, showing us the website of the Nawhal's brand, probably the largest supplier of sauce to French fast food. Then he reads the list of ingredients of the "fresh cucumber white sauce": the first three ingredients are water, oil and vinegar. "It's actually mayonnaise." And the fourth ingredient: glucose-fructose syrup. "So the sauce is going to be sweet. It has nothing to do with a homemade white sauce. »
In the rest of the report, we shot cameras hidden in two kebabs to find out if their white sauces were artisanal or industrial, then organized a blind tasting with the owner of the restaurant Garni, a sandwich specialist.