Welcome to my little corner of culinary delights.  We continue where we left off regarding pan sauce.  In making pan sauce, it is made directly in the pan from whence it got its name.  Flour is added to the grease producing a paste called roux.  Stock is whipped in for additional flavor and for thinning the roux.  The desired consistency of any sauce depends upon its application.

White sauce is one of my favorites to make and use.  Within this family of white sauce is your ve-louté.  It is made with white stock and blond roux.  Béchamel is basically velouté but with cream added.  If stock is not used, then milk is used in place of cream.  Due to the wide use of béchamel, I explained how to make it in a much earlier article.  The type and amount of roux determines the thickness of the sauce.  Be careful not to scorch the sauce.  Derivatives to the white sauce include Bohémienne, Cardinal, Ėcossaise, Mornay, á l’Anglaise, and Homard á l’Anglaise.  There is well over a dozen derivatives to the velouté sauce.  And yes, I have not made them all.  I have made the five primary sauces and some of the secondary sauces.

Regarding tomato sauce, I covered that and one of its descendance (spaghetti sauce) in detail in previous articles.  There are well over a dozen derivatives or descendance to the tomato sauce.

Hollandaise sauce and Beurre blanc sauce use lots of butter.  Even butter is a sauce although we do not think of it as such.  It is an applied flavoring.  As a result, use good quality butter.  It takes skill to properly blend the water, acid and egg yolks with the butter.  Either whole or clarified butter may be used.  Salted butter is not to be used.  The egg yolks provide the emulsion effect.  A reduc-tion is made and strained.  Eggs are added and the mixture heated over simmering water.  The But-ter needs to be slowly poured in a thin stream into the mixture while vigorously whipped to pre-vent separating.

This is only a very brief explanation for giving the concept.  It can get very complicated and in-volved.  I might walk you through the recipe and procedures in my next article.  You might want to try it but do not expect success until you practice.  Start on simpler ones and work your way up.  There are eight or more derivatives.  Bearnaise, bavaroise and maltaise are some of the better-known derivatives of the hollandaise sauce.

Beurre blanc is the last of the five basic sauces.  Beurre is French for butter and blanc means “white”.  It lives up to its name.  For making it, follow the above process.  There are well over 200 different sauces.  Within this family are sweet dessert sauces, and many named after their primary ingredient such as cheese sauce, cherry sauce, horseradish sauce and many more.  Even within those categories are subcategories.

Until next time, peace to all.