Classic Stocks & 5 Mother Sauces

Photo by Dennis Klein on Unsplash

When you think about modern French cooking, one of the first things that come to your mind is sauces.

This reputation belongs to Auguste Escoffier — father of 5 mother sauces: Velouté, Béchamel, Tomate, Espagnole and Hollandaise.

Classic Stocks

Before we deep dive into the foundation of modern French cuisine — in other words, mother sauces — first we have to expand our knowledge about classic stocks. Because stocks like Fond Brun (brown stock) and Fond blanc de volaille (white chicken stock) are the basis of most sauces in the modern culinary world.

Fond Brun

As known as brown stock is one of the most important and most used stock types in professional kitchens around the world — including French.

One of the most common mistakes about the brown stock; it only consists of beef bones. On the contrary brown stocks are — mostly — consist of 50% beef bones and 50% chicken bones & wings.

How to make a successful brown stock?

First, we have to cut the same amount of beef and chicken bones with a cleaver. Let’s say half kilos (18 ounces) each for our example.

Then we starting to roast them in the oven for 210 degrees (410 Fahrenheit) for about 30 minutes. After we’re gonna add mirepoix to our roasting pan which consists of 75g onion (2.65 ounces), 100g carrot ( 3.50 ounces), and 75g of celery which is cut almost equally in terms of size; and mix them with a plastic or wooden spoon.

If you wanna learn more about what mirepoix is — and other classics like bouquet garni and so on — you can check out our first blog post about herbs & spices here.

Roast another 10 minutes in the oven and now you can add 25g tomato paste (0.90 ounces) and mix again.

Finally, after another 10 min in the oven take your pan out and strain everything. Degrease the fat on your pan with a kitchen towel and put everything back on. Now deglaze your pan with around 200ml dry white wine — make it step by step.

Lastly, add 2 liters of water and bouquet garni and bring to the boil.

Don’t forget the add seasoning ( salt & pepper).

Remove excess fat on top of your sauce constantly. Keep simmering for at least 45 minutes to 1 hour if you are really in a hurry. But best practice is simmering for around 4 to 5 hours and your brown stock is ready to use.

Fond Blanc de Volaille

As known as white stock or chicken stock is another most used stock type in the culinary world and base of some mother sauces like tomato and velouté.

How to make white chicken stock?

First, wash your chicken wings with cold water briefly.

After that, just like we did in the brown stock cut your chicken wings with a cleaver. Put all your wings in a deep pan and cover on top with 2–3 liter of water for 1 kg chicken wings. Start heating up your stock till it becomes boiling. Constantly remove excess fat on the surface.

While your water is heating up, start preparing your mirepoix which contains 75 g onion, 75g celery and, 75g of carrot. Also, prepare one bouquet garni and peel 3 garlic cloves, and cut them half.

Lastly, crush roughly 10 white peppercorns with the side of your cleaver.

When everything is ready and your water is started to boil, add your mirepoix, bouquet garni, crushed white peppercorns, and garlic cloves in your stock and start simmering for at least 1 hour. Again it’s better if you can simmer longer than that — around 4 to 5 hours.

When your simmering is done strain your stock with fine chinois and your white chicken stock is ready to use.

5 Mother Sauces

Auguste Escoffier was a French chef, writer, and restaurateur.

He was much inspired by Marie-Antoine Carême who was one of the pioneers of French haute cuisine.

In 1903, Escoffier published his first culinary book Le Guide Culinaire and listed Espagnole, Velouté, Tomate and, Béchamel as mother sauces and Hollandaise as daughter sauce. However, in 1907 he published an English edition of Le Guide Culinaire (A Guide to Modern Cookery) and added Hollandaise alongside the original four and described it as mother sauce.

Sauce Béchamel

Béchamel is generally served with dishes like eggs, fish, and steamed poultry.

It’s also an essential base for other classic sauces like cream sauce and mornay.

To understand and learn how to make a delicious béchamel first we have to learn about what roux and studded onion is.

Roux is a thickening agent for sauces which always consist of 50% butter and 50% flour.

There are different types of roux: white, blond, brown, and dark brown. The names come from how long the roux is cooked. White roux has the shortest cooking time and the dark brown roux has the longest cooking time which gives the dark brown color to the roux.

Studded onion is — as you can figure it out by its name — onion which is studded with clove and bay leaf to give aroma to the milk which used in béchamel sauce.

How to make a sauce béchamel?

First, peel and cut your onion in half. Then make a small cut with your office knife at the bottom of your onion to place bay leaf and clove easily.

For an exemplary recipe, put 500ml milk in a saucepan, put your studded onion in — the studded part must be in the milk — and cover the top of your pan with clean film. Start heating up your milk gently, don’t boil it.

While your milk is heating up, start preparing your white roux. Put 40g butter in a small pan, very shortly heat up, and take it from the stove. Strain 40g flour in your pan and whisk till the consistency is there. Your white roux is ready.

Remove your milk from the stove. Remove clean film and studded onion from your pan, cool it down briefly. Add your milk on your white roux in 3 steps with strain. The pan should be on medium heat while you whisking and adding your milk. When you find the perfect texture take it from the stove and add salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg to taste. Your béchamel is ready to serve.

Sauce Tomate

For the successful tomato sauce, you need to have well-prepared chicken stock — in our case (recipe) 500 ml chicken stock will be just fine.

Cut 1 kg tomato finely diced. Cut 100g onions and 100g carrots as equal as possible to the size of your diced tomatoes. Cut half 2 cloves of peeled garlic.

Put 60g butter on a wide saute pan and add 50g finely diced smoked bacon.

On medium heat, add onions, carrots, garlic and mix with a plastic or wooden spoon for while. Add 100g tomato paste and keep mixing. Add tomatoes and keep mixing. Before adding tomatoes taste them and if they’re not sweet enough add a pinch of sugar. Add 50g strained flour and keep mixing.

Take from the stove before adding chicken stock. Add a half-liter of white chicken stock and put it on the stove again in high heat. Add bouquet garni and seasoning (salt & pepper). Bring the boil.

Take bouquet garni out. Put all of them in a blender. Be sure the blender is at low speed and always put a torchon or kitchen towel on it before start. You’ll never know when the blender gonna decided to blast on your face. Blend for 30 seconds to 1 minute.

Strain your sauce with fine chinois before use for a silkier texture. Your sauce tomate is ready!

Sauce Velouté

Velouté means velvety in French. So when you decided to make sauce velouté, your aim for the final product must be to create a silky texture on the palate.

Velouté is one of the most important sauces in both classical and modern French cuisine — yet one of the “easiest” to create.

All you need is white stock and white roux.

As we mentioned in sauce béchamel, to make a white roux; just melt your butter briefly in the saucepan and add the same amount of strained flour and whisk.

When your white roux is ready, cool it down and start boiling your white stock. When you mixing roux and stock, always one of them has to be cooler than the other. In our case — and generally — the roux must be cool down before mixing with hot stock.

Gently and step by step add your white stock. Keep whisking and adding until you reached that smooth and silky texture of perfect velouté. Then add salt & pepper to taste. Your sauce velouté is ready to use in dishes or daughter sauces like sauce vin blanc, sauce suprême, and sauce allemande.

Sauce Espagnole

Espagnole is another mother sauce that consists of stock and roux.

Instead of white stock and white roux that we used in sauce velouté; for the sauce Espagnole we are going to use brown stock and brown roux — plus aromatics.

For aromatics: prepare mirepoix. Use a medium saucepan, add butter and mirepoix. Mix them for around 2 minutes and add strained flour to the pan. Whisk until the color of your roux turns brown. Take your pan from the stove and strain your roux to get rid of mirepoix and any lumps it may occur. Let it cool down while you’re starting to boil your brown stock.

When your brown stock is boiled, keep simmering until the roux is cold enough to mix. Add brown stock in brown roux step by step while whisking on medium heat. When mixing is done add bouquet garni in your sauce and simmer for another 45 min to 1 hour. Take bouquet garni out and your sauce Espagnole is ready to serve.

Sauce Hollandaise

For the perfect hollandaise, you need two things: Sabayon and clarified butter.

Sabayon is a mixture of egg yolks and white wine. You can also use white wine vinegar instead of white wine itself.

Clarified butter is butter that separated the water and milk solids inside the regular butter and only fat content remain is used.

Whisk two egg yolks on a bain-marie (water bath) in a big bowl. Add boiled white wine or white wine vinegar while whisking. Don’t heat the egg yolks too much to avoid cooking them.

When you have a coating texture, remove your sabayon from the bain-marie and add clarified butter very slowly — while you’re whisking it constantly.

Lastly, add some lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and salt to taste. Your hollandaise is ready to serve!

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