Sauce Details, Meaning Sauce Article and Explanation Guide

Sauce Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description

A sauce is a thickened liquid that can be used to add flavour to food, to moisten it, and/or to make it look more attractive on the plate. The term sauce comes from the French sauce of the same meaning, from Latin salsa also of the same meaning, from sal, "salt". Related words: "saline", "salad".

Table of contents

1 Sauces in French cuisine
2 Sauces in other cuisines
3 Sauce variations
4 Examples of sauces

4.1 References

Sauces in French cuisine

Sauces form an important part of traditional French cuisine. French-style sauces are thickened with starch or roux (flour cooked in butter) The 19th-century French chefs Antonin Carême and Auguste Escoffier evolved an intricate methodology by which hundreds of sauces were classified under one of five (or six) mother sauces from which all others are made.

Béchamel; is based on flour and milk
Velouté is based on a light broth, fish, chicken or veal.
Espagnole is based on brown stock, beef etc.
Mayonnaise and Hollandaise use eggs as emulsifiers to combine normally immiscible ingredients such as oil and vinegar
Beurre Blanc,and other butter sauces, use butter fat that is re-emulsified back to a state resembling the original
Tomato sauce is also considered to be a mother sauce, though it is a later addition to the other five.

Sauces in other cuisines

Sauces and condiments also plan an important role in the cuisines of many other countries:

British cooking: Gravy is a traditional sauce used on the traditional roast dinner, comprised of roast potatoes, roast meat, boiled vegetables and optional Yorkshire puddings. Apple sauce and mint sauce are also used on meat. Salad Cream is used on salads. Ketchup and brown sauce are used on more fast-food type dishes. Strong English mustard (as well as French or American mustard) are also used on various foods, as is Worcestershire sauce. Custard is a popular sweet sauce. Some of these sauce traditions have been exported to ex-colonies such as the USA.
Asian cooking uses an entirely different range of sauces. Chinese cuisine is known for sauces made from preserved ingredients - fermented soy bean, fermented black beans, various chili oils. South East Asian cuisines such as Thai and Vietnamese use sauces made from fermented fish. Asian prepared sauces are not thick as they do not contain thickening agents such as flour or butter. The thickening occurs in the last minutes of cooking when thickeners like corn starch or arrowroot are added.

Sauce variations

There are also many sauces based on tomato (such as tomato ketchup and tomato sauce), other vegetables and various spices. Note that ketchup can be based on vegetables or fruits other than the tomato.

Sauces can also be sweet, and used either hot or cold to accompany and garnish a dessert.

Another kind of sauce is made from stewed fruit, usually strained to remove skin and fibers and often sweetened. Such sauces, including applesauce and cranberry sauce, are often eaten with specific other foods (applesauce with ham; cranberry sauce with poultry) or served as desserts.