Sauce Boss

Day 3 of CA 101 was a blast. The next four days are all mother sauces (the 5 sauces that are the bases for pretty much every other sauce). Today was Béchamel - a sauce of white roux (equal parts clarified butter and flour) and milk. Once the roux and milk are combined, an onion with a clove and bay leaf attached are added and it simmers for 30 minutes. The sauce doesn't end up with any onion flavor, but merely a hint of the aroma. From here you can go a billion directions. We went three. Each with a possible 20 points. (we received 18 points for our plain béchamel - it was a little thick).

First, the Mornay sauce - béchamel sauce with Gruyere and Parmesan cheese. This would be an excellent sauce to add to elbow macaroni for mac 'n' cheese. Or add some peppers and you've got some killer queso. 18 points - also a little thick.

Then we made Soubise sauce - onions gently sweated in very little butter with béchamel sauce added and simmered until the sauce soaks up the flavor of the onion. This would be delicious with a poached fish or a pork loin. 19 points - could use a little more salt.

Finally, the money sauce - Nantua. This sauce was slightly more difficult. We started by sauteeing some shrimp (shells on) in very little butter until the shells become just pink - we're not cooking the shrimp, just starting the cooking process. The shrimp get moved to a bowl. A little more butter goes in, followed by a little mirepoix. As soon as the mirepoix starts to color, pincer with tomato paste. As soon as the tomato paste is brick red, add two cups of water, parsley stems, thyme and pepper corns. Peel the shrimp, toss in the shells and let that stock simmer until there's very little liquid left. Devein the shrimp, slice in half along the vein cut, and hold for later. Once the stock has reduced, strain and cool. Combine with room temperature butter to create a compound shrimp butter. Put 4 parts béchamel and 1 part heavy cream in a pot and bring up to temperature. Add shrimp. AS SOON AS the shrimp begin to curl, remove the pot from the heat and stir in the shrimp butter. This sauce is slap-your-mother tasty! Put it on fish, eat it with bread, or just eat it with a spoon like we did. 20 points - nailed it.

"Why no pictures Luke?" you may be asking. Well, A) Béchamel, Soubise, and Mornay are all just white sauces, served on white plates, so there's not much to look at. B) These sauces all had specific times that they had to be finished and presented to our chef instructors. We (my random partner for the next three days, Mandi) had from 9:35 to 9:43 for the first two and got it in at 9:42. Then we had from 10:25 to 10:34 for the second two and got those in at 10:33. According to the chefs, we'll get better at consolidating our time as we go.

Tomorrow: Espagnole (brown sauces). See ya then!