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Stock:
The centerpiece of any great stock is the
bones, as they provide the flavor, richness,
body, and color. The bones most often used
for stocks are beef/veal for brown stock,
and chicken or fish for white stock. In
addition to these there are many other stock
preparations made from lamb, pork, ham,
turkey, duck, vegetable, and other game.
The second ingredient is the mirepoix, which
is a mixture of onions, carrots, and celery
used as a flavoring agent. The key element
of our qualities result from the utilization
of our Fresh Bones Recipes, gas-fired
roasted for perfect browning, slow
simmerings and skimmings for up to 12 hours,
natural reductions of up to nine hours,
blending batches like fine wines to produce
absolute consistency. We are culinary
fanatics right down to our ranch direct
Mirepoix, Fresh Parsley Stems (no leaf),
Fresh Bay Leaves, simmered in multiple 300
gallon centrally fired steam kettles
eliminating any concerns for scorching.
The next most important ingredient is the
liquid used for the stock. In some cases a
remoulage is used, which is the re-wetting
of bones or using bones from a previous
stock to extract more flavor from them. Most
often, however, this liquid is water, and in
the case of CulinArte’ we are able to use
the finest of glacial waters in our area.
Finally, there is the addition of
flavorings, seasonings, and spices.
Glace:
CulinArte' was founded with the objective to
produce pure and classical Stock Reductions
in the forms of GLACE'S providing chefs with
the luxury of utilizing pure foundations
without the labor, time, energy, space,
equipment and inventory of frozen bones
necessary to produce their own.
CulinArte' is the only company that produces
pure reductions in several species in the
world. Our Glace's rely completely on
reductions for flavors and depth, never
utilizing any extract, salt or artificial
preservative.
Glace is basically a stock that has been
reduced Napé (coats the back of spoon). It
is nothing more than a concentrated stock,
which has been reduced by 75% or more, and
is rubber-like when refrigerated. The
process by which a stock becomes a glace is
reduction.
A glace can be made from whatever you make a
stock from, therefore, you could have Glace
De Veau (veal), Glace De Poulet (chicken),
Glace De Poisson (fish), Glace De Agneau
(lamb), Glace De Porc (pork), Glace De
Canard (duck), etc.
Demi-Glace:
"Half-glaze." A mixture of equal
proportions of brown stock, and brown
sauce that has been reduced by half. The
Demi, or half glace is just what it
sounds like. The amount of reduction is
less than for a glace, but produces an
incredible foundation from which to
produce award-winning sauces.
At CulinArte’ we produce two different
classes of Demi’s. Our "Elite" Demi-Glace De
Veau relies totally on reductions without
any roux or liaison for thickening, taking
over 24 hours of roasting, simmerings and
reductions, truly for the "elite" levels of
cuisine.
Our Demi-Glace De Veau Classique is an "escoffier"
method of half reductions and blends, which,
are further reduced with a liaison of starch
for thickening combined with herbs and
spices for an economical as well as
classical blend.
We also produce a Demi-Glace De Poulet
Classique. Our Chicken Demi is made using a
fresh selected roasted chicken bone recipe
simmered with mirepoix, and blended with our
recipe of herbs and spices. Our Duck Demi is
produced using fresh young duckling frames
roasted and simmered with our mirepoix,
simmered and reduced, and then blended to
include a subtle hint of sherry wine, fresh
garlic, white peppercorns and fresh bay
leaves. Both of these wonderful Demi-Glace’s
will fulfill any of your poultry
applications.
Call us at: 1-866-262-0010
The perceived difficulty of sauce making has
the average cook running scared. Many will
not even attempt to make the simplest sauce.
In reality some sauces are so simple you
will kick yourself for not trying them
earlier. Many professional chefs would have
you believe that a great sauce takes days to
prepare, and can only be mastered by those
who study at the feet of a great master
chef. To a small degree there is some truth
to this as it relates to the classical
preparations, but the real truth of a good
sauce is that one firstly needs quality
ingredients, without these, as in all
aspects of cooking, you can not hope to turn
out anything close to a masterpiece.
It is our desire at CulinArte’ to educate
you, and demystify the art of sauce making.
We will discuss briefly the great sauces of
classical cuisine, but more importantly will
teach you the basic foundations of good
modern sauce making, and show how you can
prepare a masterpiece in only minutes using
one of our Glace or Demi-Glace products.
Since we have taken out the most time
consuming step, it is now possible for any
chef or cook to be a master saucier in just
a short time.
Basics:
How many times have you heard someone say,
“I don’t like all those heavy sauces all
over my food, I like good simple food.”
However, these are the same people that put
ketchup on their burgers, and tartar sauce
on their fried fish. What we learn is that
this individual has merely had badly
prepared sauces, probably ones which are
pasty or gummy, and thus they avoid all
sauces. What a shame.
While modern sauces tend to be lighter, with
more and more people looking to eat healthy,
it is impossible to understand how to put
together a modern sauce without an
understanding of the classics.
Classical sauces were made up of three main
components. The liquid, the thickener, and
the seasonings/garnish. In looking at the
Mother Sauces, which are Béchamel, Espagnole,
Veloute, Tomato, and Hollandaise, we find
the foundation of this principle. Béchamel
for instance is nothing more than a sauce
produced by thickening milk with a pale
roux. Veloute, is a white stock of chicken
or fish, which has been thickened with a
roux. Espagnole is brown stock, which has
been thickened, while Tomato sauce is
thickened by the natural viscosity of the
tomatoes, and Hollandaise is an emulsion
sauce. From these five Grand or Mother
sauces used as the foundation, all of the
small sauces were derived.
The following are brief explanations of
the mother, or grand sauces:
Béchamel: A white sauce
made of milk thickened with light roux
and flavored with onion pique (half
onion studded with clove and bay leaf.)
Demi-glace:
"Half-glaze." A mixture of equal
proportions of brown stock and brown
sauce that has been reduced by half.
Veloute: A sauce of
white stock (chicken, veal, and seafood)
Thickened with white roux. Also, a cream
soup made with a Veloute sauce base and
flavorings (usually pureed) that is
usually finished with a liaison (egg
yolks and cream.)
Tomato Sauce: A grand
sauce, prepared by cooking salt pork,
carrot, onion and garlic with tomatoes,
blended. See recipe.
Hollandaise Sauce: A
classic emulsion sauce made with a
vinegar reduction, egg yolks, and melted
butter flavored with lemon juice.
Sauce Béchamel, which is not nearly used
as much today as in classical cuisine,
still has its place in modern sauce
making. Where you might most often find
the Béchamel today is in a Gratin. A
perfect example would be vegetables
layered in a baking dish, covered with a
Béchamel, and then sprinkled with
cheese, and or breadcrumbs. The result
is a dish with a flavorful lightly
browned crust. Today, many chef’s choose
to use reduced cream rather than
preparing the Béchamel, but by doing so
they lose the ability of forming a
browned crust, and in some cases the
cream can be over reduced and become
oily.
Now that we have the mother sauces
covered, let’s look at the techniques
used to prepare the finest modern
sauces. Here we will look at such terms
as Reduction, Deglazing, Enriching,
Seasoning, and Straining.
Once again Reduction as in
stock reductions, plays as important a role
in the finishing of a good sauce. There are
three major ways to use reduction to finish
a sauce.
1. Using Reduction to concentrate flavors:
In the same way that we produce a Glace by
concentrating a stock through reduction, by
reducing a sauce, some of the liquid
evaporates, and the result is a more
concentrated flavor.
2. Using Reduction to adjust texture: As
reduction will cause liquid to evaporate,
you are not only concentrating flavors, but
thickening as well, as only the liquid
evaporates, but not the thickening agent. If
for instance a sauce is too thin, one can
simmer it until it reaches the proper
consistency, or a chef might add some stock
to a thickened sauce and then simmer it
again bringing it to the right consistency,
as well as concentrating the flavor
3. Using Reduction to add new flavors: In
this case, just as you can reduce a sauce to
concentrate the flavor, it is possible to
reduce a liquid first, and then add it to
your sauce. This is really one of the most
important techniques in sauce making. The
perfect example of this is would be the
reduction of both red and white wines, as
well as other spirits, such as cognac,
brandy, and bourbon. Lets look at a
classical sauce preparation, which proves
this point. In preparing a Bordelaise Sauce,
one must first reduce red wine with
shallots, pepper, and herbs to one fourth of
it original volume. As this mixture is
reduced the flavors of all the ingredients
are concentrated, and this is what gives
this particular sauce its distinctive taste.
Now that we have covered reduction, let’s
move on to some of the other
finishing techniques used in sauce
making.
Deglazing is the technique,
which is associated with sautéing. To
deglaze a pan we swirl in a liquid and
dissolve, or scrape up the particles of food
left in the bottom of the sauté pan. These
particles are called the Fond (foundation in
French). Once the liquid like wine is added
to the pan and reduced, this becomes the
foundation of your final sauce.
Enriching your sauce is
performed by either adding a liaison, heavy
cream, or butter to your sauce. The liaison
actually performs a dual role, as noted
earlier it is a thickening agent, but it
also provides richness to the final sauce.
Heavy Cream has always been used in the
classical kitchen to add flavor and
richness. In its simplest form when added to
a Béchamel, you now have cream sauce.
Butter, is added to finish sauces to provide
richness, flavor, and a nice shine to the
final product. The process by which butter
is introduced to finish a sauce is called
Monter Au Beurre (pronounced mon tay oh
burr), which simply means to mount up with
butter, and is used in both classical and
modern sauces. The butter should be added by
placing a few pats of butter in the hot
sauce and swirling the pan off the heat
until the butter is incorporated. This sauce
should be served immediately, as it is
possible for it to separate.
Seasoning as in any recipe
is always the last ingredient. How many
times have you read a recipe, and at the
very end it says, adjust seasoning. As you
already know salt is the most prominent
finish seasoning. Pepper, lemon juice,
cayenne, and some fortified wines like
Sherry and Madeira whose alcohol is easily
evaporated by heat are some of the other
finish seasonings used. However, with that
said, the possibilities are endless in
modern cuisine for adding new seasonings and
flavor profiles to your sauces.
Straining is another
finishing technique, which will remove any
possible graininess from your sauce,
specifically those that have been thickened
with a roux. This technique will also be
used to remove any of the flavoring
ingredients you would not want presented in
your final sauce presentation, like shallots
or garlic for instance.
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At this point you should consider
yourself almost an expert in the art of
sauce making. In any event, let us just
look at some of the myriad of small
sauces that can be produced using both
your knowledge of classical sauce
making, and the techniques, which we
just discussed. Since we have gone into
such depth with the mother sauces, we
won’t bore you with all of the classical
small sauces.
The main thing to realize is that by using
Culinarte products you are removing all of
the time consuming steps, which you have
just read about. You will now have the
necessary base Glace, and Demi-Glace
products to produce the finest classical, as
well as improvised sauces possible. As cooks
you are now freed from last minute
reductions, and are able to produce
complicated, time-consuming sauces in a
matter of minutes.
For most of you, sauce making will be done
as the finish to a sautéed item, and thus,
rather than just giving you recipes to
follow, it is more important to teach you
how to incorporate all of the techniques we
have discussed. By doing this, we will give
you the skills that are required to produce
what is called the Pan Sauce, or Pan
Deglazed Sauce. What follows is a table
describing the necessary ingredients to
improvise, and produce the Pan Sauce:
Sauté Items: lamb, pork,
veal, chicken, steaks, fish, seafood.
Liquids for Deglazing:
water, stocks or broth, wines, beer, cognac,
vinegars, alcohol (vodka, whiskey, bourbon,
etc).
Liaison: butter, cream,
purees, starches.
Finish Flavorings: spices,
fresh herbs, mustard, vinegars, salt and
pepper, spirits (brandies, whiskies, etc).
Fats for Sautéing: olive
oil, vegetable oils, rendered fats (bacon,
poultry fats, etc.), whole butter, clarified
butter.
Aromatics: onion, garlic,
shallots, carrots, celery, shallots, leek,
capers.
Culinarte Glace and Demi-Glace:
chicken, pork, veal, lamb, duck, fish.
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The most important step now is to learn
the basic technique for producing the
pan sauce. You will find that almost all
of your sauces will be produced in this
way, and only rarely will you need to
use another technique. Since most of you
will produce your sauces as the result
of a sautéed item, these will be
important techniques for you to learn.
Using the chart above as a guideline for
ingredients, we will take you through a
step-by-step process. The term sauté is
French for “to jump”. This is a cooking
method that requires a small amount of fat,
and medium to high heat.
Let us first talk about fats used for sauté.
One must acquaint themselves with the
different properties of the fats they will
use. You will often here the term smoke
point, this is the point at which a fat will
begin to smoke and break down. It is
important to understand this as for instance
whole butter will burn in a much shorter
time than most oils.
The first step in the sauté process is to
preheat your pan. Most people do not allow
the pan to get hot enough before they place
the fat in the pan. By getting your pan nice
and hot, and then allowing your fat to heat
you will get a much better product, and less
chance of your item sticking to the pan.
Remember the desired effect of your sauté is
to have a nice caramelized coating on the
outside of your item. Once you have properly
sautéed your item, you will now either keep
it warm for service, or hold it on the side
if it needs to be returned to the pan to
finish the cooking process. One of the most
important components of your sauce is the
browned bits of the sautéed item, which have
adhered themselves to the pan. This as was
discussed earlier is called the fond, or
foundation.
At this point, you might want to lower the
heat, and add your aromatics to the pan.
This might be your onions, garlic, or
shallots, depending the particular sauce you
are preparing. You will sauté, or sweat the
aromatics until they reach the desired
doneness.
Your next step is to add your liquid in
order to deglaze the pan. Most often this
will be wine, or other various spirits, as
well as stocks. You will want to scrape up
all those browned bits at the bottom of the
pan and reduce the liquid the required
amount. At this point you will often add a
second liquid such as stock, which would
then be reduced further. This is where you
would most often be adding one of
CulinArte’s wonderful products.
When you have reduced your liquids, and
achieved the desired consistency, you will
now enrich your sauce. As the chart shows
above, this can be a liaison, heavy cream,
butter, purees, or a thickener. Most often
you will see butter swirled in at the end
off the heat. This technique is one, which
we learned about earlier, which is called
Monter Au Beurre, which means, “to mount
with butter.” Add the butter in this way
will add richness, flavor, and shine to your
finished sauce.
You now only have two steps left. First
would be to season your sauce with salt and
pepper to taste, or add any of the other
spices, herbs, or flavorings at this time.
Finally, depending on your presentation, you
could now strain your sauce in order to give
it that silky smooth texture, or leave it to
make a more rustic presentation.
By now, you should almost consider
yourself a master of the pan sauce. You
now have the basics for preparing
whatever sauce you like.
1. Sauté
2. Add aromatics
3. Deglaze
4. Reduce
5. Season
6. Strain
Remember to take a look at some of the other
great products at Culinarte’.
Volcano Shanks (Pork, Veal, and Lamb)
Duck Legs with Door County Cherries
These products are vacuum-sealed with our
wonderful sauces. All you need to do is
place them in a pot of boiling water, or a
steamer for 13-15 minutes, and you have a
wonderful gourmet dinner ready to serve to
your guests.
You are now only limited by your own ideas
and creativity. There are so many CulinArte’
products to choose from, which will meet any
of your needs regardless of the cuisine or
dish you need to prepare. You may go to our
products page to order, or call our toll
free number 1-866-262-0010,
and we will be happy to answer any questions
you might have.
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