I have got so much to learn about cooking. I didn’t even know that there are five (5) “Mother” sauces until I saw it on one of the episodes of Chef Gordon Ramsay‘s Hell’s Kitchen.
It made me want to go to culinary school, but, I still believe that you really don’t have to go to culinary school to become great at what you do. Knowing how to cook is a skill. Now, it’s up to you to develop it and how you hone it.
For someone like me who’s just learning, I would like to share with you this new-found knowledge. Without further ado…
 The 5 Mother Sauces
They were called the Mother or leading sauces because they are the main sauces in cooking.
With just a few modifications, all sauces in cooking are derived from these mother sauces.
Reffered to as the classic white sauce.
Named after its inventor, Louis XIV’s steward Louis de Béchamel.
It’s basically made of milk and butter-flour roux.
Stock-based white sauce. It can be from chicken, fish or veal.
Brown sauce, traditionally made from rich meat stock or
mirepoix (onions, carrots, and celery) of browned vegetables.
Basically made with butter, egg yolks and lemon juice. Requires some skills and knowledge to prepare. Flavor is buttery and rich with a mild tang because of the lemon juice.
Consists of oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Originally included with the mother sauces.
Made of tomatoes and herbs.
Out of all these, I’ve only made tomato sauce. So, I’m on my quest to try to make all of these sauces soon and pair it with the proper protein to appreciate more the unique taste of each of them.
If you can share your own recipes that goes great with these sauces, I would love to try it!
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Bechamel – basically its a cream sauce. Goes great with lasagna, you can serve it with fish. Some little tweaks and additions and you create other kinds of sauce like the Mornay and Soubise
Veloute – this can be a soup as well. I don’t make this one with a Roux, but instead, I use whatever fresh ingredient I have, reduce it and use an immersion blender to make it velvety. My latest one was celery soup. Celery, a bit of milk, some heavy cream, salt and pepper. Heat them up until celery is soft enough then blend. I garnish it with chopped mint, bacon bits and creme fraiche (or sour creme if you can’t find creme fraiche).
PS. you can make your own creme fraiche as well. Its a lot tastier than sour creme and goes well with a lot of preparations.
1 cup of heavy cream, half a cup of plain yoghurt. Heat up the heavy cream in your microwave for about 30 seconds. Then mix the yoghurt and cover them. Leave them in room temp for about an hour or two, then refrigerate. enjoy.
Espagnole – Well, I’m a meat eater and this goes well with lots of meat preparations. You can make a Demi-glace out of it too for a perfect steak.
Hollandaise – First thing that comes to mind is Eggs Benedict. Since its an emulsion, the taste is quite deep and complex. You can make variations of it with different kinds of ingredients that emulsifies. Good luck.
Tomate – I think this one goes a long, long way in its line of foods that goes well with it. Add a different herb, spice or ingredient and its amazing. I make Lamb Ragout with tomate, but adding some anise, cinnamon, worcestershire sauce, and thyme, and oh yeah, its amazing.