Aioli is a thick creamy garlic sauce used in the cooking of Provence, France, and of Catalonia in Spain. It is usually served on the side at room temperature. It is often compared to mayonnaise in its texture, but it is not actual mayonnaise. It is mainly served with cold or hot boiled fish. It…
French Sauces
Banquière Sauce
Banquière Sauce is a classic French sauce made from chicken stock, cream, butter and a few tablespoons of Madeira, along with a few slivers of truffle.
Béarnaise Sauce
Béarnaise sauce is Hollandaise sauce with shallots and tarragon added. It can be served with meat or fish. When making Hollandaise sauce, you simmer vinegar to reduce it. To turn the sauce into a Béarnaise, you add chopped shallots at this point, so that they will cook and soften at the same time. You then…
Brown Butter
Brown Butter (aka “beurre noir” meaning “blackened butter” in French) is butter that is cooked until it has deeply browned, to which capers and chopped parsley are then added. It’s then poured out into a dish. A tablespoon of vinegar is heated in the pan where the butter was browned, then added to the melted…
Matelote Sauce
Matelote Sauce is made from red wine, butter, flour, shallots, sugar, salt and coarsely-ground black pepper. It is served warm, and should not be too thick. It is often served with eel. Language Notes Means “fish stew sauce.”
Melted Butter
In classical French cooking, a very simple sauce is made by melting butter slowly, then seasoning the melted butter to taste with salt, pepper and a few drops of lemon juice. It’s used on foods cooked in water, such as vegetables that have been boiled, or fish that has been poached.
Meunière Butter
In classical French cooking, Meunière Butter (“beurre meunière”) is a very simple sauce of browned butter (aka “Beurre Noisette”) flavoured with lemon. You make it by melting butter until it has started to brown, and seasoning it to taste with salt, white pepper and a few drops of lemon juice. It’s used in fish “à…
Noisette Butter
Noisette Butter (meaning “nut butter” in French) is a simple sauce that is made soley from butter. It is butter that has been melted and cooked until it starts to turn light brown, but not as dark brown as for brown butter. It is called “nut butter” because the browning gives it a tawny, nut…
Panade à la frangipane
Panade à la frangipane is a thick sauce made from egg yolk, butter, flour and milk. It is used to bind and thicken ground poultry and fish mixtures. It is also sometimes used as a filling. Unlike Crème Frangipane (almond pastry cream), no sugar is added — nor are there any almonds. Cooking Tips ½…
Poivrade Sauce
There are two versions of Poivrade Sauce. Both version are for meat, but one is for game in particular. There is also a third, older version from the heyday of classical French cooking. Version One for meat A mirepoix of vegetables (e.g finely-diced vegetables) are softened in butter. Wine vinegar and white wine are added…
Provençal Sauce
Provençal Sauce is a sauce used in cooking in France. It is meant to conjure up images and memories of the Provence area of France. Recipes for the sauce vary. There are two main categories: with and without tomatoes. While many people now associate the Provence area with foods such as tomatoes, it’s important to…
Provencal Sauce (cold)
Sauce provençale froide (“provencal cold sauce”) is a sauce made in the Provence area of France. It is made room temperature and served room temperature with fish, grilled meats, or cold meats. It is is somewhat like another sauce from Provence, aoili, except that sauce provençale froide is somewhat more translucent than aoili. It is…
Rémoulade Sauce
The classic French definition of Rémoulade Sauce is mayonnaise with the following (chopped) ingredients stirred in: capers, chervil, gherkin, parsley, tarragon, and spring onion. It’s then flavoured with some anchovy extract, and used to accompany cold meat and seafood. There are many variations on this classic definition in the English-speaking world which swap mustard for…
Sauce Diane
Sauce Diane is not the same as the sauce that is produced in making Steak Diane. Larousse Gastronomique (1988 edition) refers to it as a cream sauce flavoured with peppercorns and truffles. Escoffier in his Guide Culinaire, 1907, calls for cream, Sauce Poivrade, truffle, hard-boiled egg white, and says the sauce is for venison. In…
Sauce Maltaise
Sauce Maltaise is a French sauce. It consists of Hollandaise Sauce, in which orange juice is used instead of lemon juice. One of Malta’s food specialties is the blood oranges that are grown there.
Tartar Sauce
Tartar Sauce is a thick, whitish fresh sauce that has mustard, tarragon and finely chopped vegetables in it such as onions, capers, and pickles. These days, it is mostly used as a condiment accompanying fish or seafood. It is served room temperature or chilled. You can buy jars of Tartar Sauce concentrate, which you then…
Vinaigrette
A Vinaigrette is a salad dressing made from oil and vinegar. Use two parts of oil to one part vinegar: any higher amount of oil and it won’t emulsify into the vinegar. The addition of mustard and of finely chopped ground herbs, onions or garlic will help to both blend everything together and stabilize it…