Summer Sauces

During my second cooking class today at Williams Sonoma, we learned how to make summer sauces. The French may not have created the concept of sauces, but they have certainly elevated sauce making to an art. After the French Revolution, many chefs who had been employed in the kitchens of the aristocracy opened restaurants in Paris and other French cities. They competed with one another for customers, each one attempting to create the most memorable dishes. Sauces were one way to stand out in the crowd.

Sauce, in the most basic terms, is a flavored liquid designed to accompany food in order to bring out its flavor. Most sauces fall into one of five categories called Mother Sauces--by adding or substituting different flavors, thousands of sauce variations can be created. The five categories are as follows:

1) Bechamel--milk-based sauces

2) Espagnole--brown stock-based sauces

3) Veloute--white-stock-based sauces

4) Emulsified sauces

5) Viniagrettes

Today in class, we made Cucumber Raita, a yogurt-based dip for pita and a complement to the hot spiciness of Indian food. We toasted cumin seeds, and separated the whey from plain yogurt to get the consistency we needed. Next, a fresh raspberry sauce was created in a VitaMix blender, and we tasted this poured over home-made ice cream. A Mango-Pineapple Salsa is my next recipe to try, and I'll serve it with fajitas.

The final sauce was a "Mojo", a Cuban sauce prounounced "mo-ho". It can be served hot or cold. It can be used as a marinade, a table sauce or a dip.

A Creme Anglaise and a Classic Caramel Sauce finished up the class today, so I'll be using summer ingredients to put these together in my meals over the next few weeks.

Yum!