Whether we like to admit it or not, we owe much of the history of classical cooking to the French. Cooking and culinary arts have long been valued in France and much of the language of modern cooking comes from France. Virtually every professionally trained chef must learn how to prepare several of the classic French sauces and desserts and how to use many of the French terms involved in cooking. Today we will cover just a few examples of what I am talking about.
Hollandaise, Béarnaise, Beurre Blanc, Beurre Rouge, and Bechamel are all French sauces and variations of them are used in hundreds of dishes. We will provide recipes for each of them. There are others such as veloute, and espagnole that I will not cover in this post.
Sabayon, a foamy egg, sugar and sweet wine dessert sauce, is another classic French dish, that is often served either plain or combined with whipped cream over berries. I will cover making a Sabayon too.
If you have ever made a stew or soup, you will no doubt start with a Mirepoix. Mirepoix is the traditional French term for diced vegetables cooked for a long time on a gentle heat without color or browning, usually with butter or some other fat. Further cooking, often adding tomato puree or tomato paste, creates a darkened brown mixture called Pincage. Usually the Mirepoix is made up of two parts onion, and one part each carrot and celery and it forms the base for many many dishes.
French terms for technique are also important in cooking. Mise en Place, is the first that comes to mind. Mise en Place literally translates to, putting in place. It refers to the setup required before
cooking. In a professional kitchen it is used to describe the process of organizing and arranging the ingredients that a cook will require for the menu items of the day. In a home kitchen, it is used to describe the process of preparing and organizing all of the ingredients in a dish, prior to beginning the actual preparation of the recipe. For example, I always measure all of the called for ingredients in a recipe, do any chopping or dicing, and get all of the ingredients ready before starting to actually prepare the recipe.
Bain-Marie is another term that comes to mind. Literally a Bain-Marie is the French term for what we call a double boiler, but it is also used to describe the technique of cooking, where the substance to be cooked or heated is placed into a container, which is subsequently placed into or over another container that holds heated water. This technique is used to cook custards gently so that they cook all the way through and still don't crack on the top. It can also be used to melt things gently, such as chocolate. Making sauces that require an emulsion is another common application for Bain-Marie.
On and on we could go identifying and defining French terms in cooking, but my point here is just to acknowledge the fact that much of modern day cooking techniques are based on classic French cooking. Here are some recipes that will demonstrate the point. Remember, when making an emulsified sauce(meaning one liquid is suspended in another liquid in the form of small globules), use either a double boiler or a stainless steel bowl over the top of a sauce pan. I prefer the latter method versus the double boiler for two reasons. The stainless bowl provides more surface area in which to incorporate air into the mixture and the mixture is further from the heat source than in a double boiler. These types of sauces all require low and slow. The water in the sauce pan should be at a low simmer, not a boil and the top bowl or double boiler pan should never touch the water in the bottom pan.
Hollandaise
Ingredients: (yield of 1 generous cup)
10 TBSP butter
3 large egg yolks
11/2 TBSP cold water
11/2 to 2 tsps fresh lemon juice
dash of hot pepper sauce(optional)
salt and white pepper to taste
Preparation:
Melt the butter over low heat. Skim the foam off of the top and keep the butter warm. Off of the heat, place the egg yolks and water in the top of a double boiler or in a large stainless bowl. Beat the eggs and water with a whisk until light and frothy. Place the bowl over, not in, barely simmering water and continue to whisk until the eggs are thickened, about three to five minutes. Do not let the eggs get too hot or they will begin to scramble. Remove the pan or bowl from the heat and continue to whisk until the mixture has cooled just slightly. Whisking constantly, add the warm butter very slowly. When the butter is incorporated, whisk in the lemon juice, hot pepper sauce(optional), and salt and pepper. If the sauce is too thick whisk in a few drops of warm water. If at any time the sauce looks as if it is about to separate, whisk in a few TBSP of cold heavy cream. If the sauce does separate, simply whisk another egg yolk in a clean bowl and then whisk that yolk into the sauce to reform the emulsion. Enjoy this smooth velvety sauce over cooked vegetables, poached eggs or broiled meats. Here is a photo of Hollandaise.
Béarnaise
Béarnaise is a very close cousin to Hollandaise. The major difference is that we first make a white wine, vinegar and shallot reduction which will be used to flavor the sauce in place of the lemon juice and hot sauce used for the Hollandaise. Béarnaise is heavenly on grilled meat or fish, especially filet mignon.
Ingredients:(yield of one generous cup)
3 TBSP dry white wine
3 TBSP tarragon vinegar or white wine vinegar
1 shallot, minced
6 sprigs tarragon, leaves removed,chopped & reserved
8 whole black peppercorns, lightly crushed
10 TBSP butter
3 large egg yolks
11/2 tsps cold water
salt and white pepper to taste
Preparation:
In a small sauce pan combine the wine, vinegar, shallot, tarragon sprigs with the leaves removed and the crushed peppercorns. Bring to a simmer and simmer until reduced by two thirds. Remove the tarragon sprigs and discard. Reserve the warm liquid. Melt the butter over low heat. Skim the foam off of the top and keep the butter warm. Off of the heat, place the egg yolks and water in the top of a double boiler or in a large stainless bowl. Beat the eggs and water with a whisk until light and frothy. Place the bowl over, not in, barely simmering water and continue to whisk until the eggs are thickened, about three to five minutes. Do not let the eggs get too hot or they will begin to scramble. Remove the pan or bowl from the heat and continue to whisk until the mixture has cooled just slightly. Whisking constantly, add the warm butter very slowly. Then, to season the sauce, whisk in the warm reserved vinegar and wine reduction and the reserved chopped tarragon leaves. Salt and pepper to taste. Notice that the basic sauce prep is the same as for the Hollandaise above. We just season it differently at the end.
Beurre Blanc
Beurre Blanc(white butter) is another of the French sauces. It is most commonly used to flavor poached or seared fish, but also goes well with chicken or pork. It has a relatively neutral flavor, so it can be seasoned with many different herbs or spices. It is another hot emulsified butter sauce that is made with a reduction of vinegar, white wine and shallots, into which whole butter is blended.
Ingredients:(yield approximately 1 cup)
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1 TBSP minced shallots
2 TBSP heavy cream
8 oz. unsalted butter, cubed and slightly softened
Sea salt and pepper to taste
Preparation:
Combine wine, vinegar and shallots in a small(1 Quart) saucepan. Place on range on medium heat and simmer to reduce, until the liquid barely covers the shallots. Add cream and reduce again until the cream is lightly thickened and very shiny. Reduce heat to low. Begin whisking the butter a piece or two at a time into the reduction. Whisk continually and keep adding butter until it is all incorporated into the sauce. If the mixture gets too hot reduce heat or remove the pan from the flame. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Place in a glass or ceramic container to hold warm until time to serve. This sauce is excellent on seared halibut or sea bass.
Beurre Rouge
Beurre Rouge(red butter) is the first cousin of Beurre Blanc. It is made exactly as the Beurre Blanc above, except that you substitute dry red wine for the white wine and you use raspberry vinegar versus the white wine vinegar in the Beurre Blanc. The taste is a little fruitier and it is commonly used on darker cuts of fish or fowl. For example it is good with striped sea bass or chicken leg and thigh quarters. This is fish topped with caramelized onions and Beurre Rouge served with a vegetable tart. We made this dish in a class last Friday night.
Bechamel
Bechamel is one of the mother sauces of French cuisine, even though it first appeared in Italian cookbooks. It is really a simple white sauce which is made from a white roux(butter and flour) and milk. It can be flavored in many ways such as with nutmeg or tarragon to be used with seafood or it can be used as the base for other sauces such as Mornay, which is Bechamel with cheese. It is also used to cream vegetables. Every good cook needs to know how to make a Bechamel.
Ingredients:(yield one cup)
2 TBSP butter
2 TBSP all purpose flour
1 Cup milk
salt and white or black ground pepper
grated nutmeg
Preparation:
Melt the butter over medium heat in a medium saucepan. Whisk in the flour until well blended and smooth, about one and a half minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and slowly whisk in the milk. Return the pan to the heat and slowly bring the mixture to a simmer, whisking constantly to avoid lumps. Continue cooking and whisking until the sauce is smooth and thickened, about one to two minutes. Remove from heat and season with salt and pepper and nutmeg to taste. Other flavor variations can be created by adding 1 tsp lemon juice or a dash of worchester or a tsp of sherry or herbs such as parsley, chives or tarragon. For a thicker bechamel use 3 TBSP each flour and butter to form the roux, and then add the cup of milk.
Sabayon
Sabayon is a dessert sauce, but it is also an emulsion like Hollandaise, Béarnaise and Beurre Blanc. It is made with a Bain-Marie technique as well. You may have heard this dish called Zabaione, which is the Italian equivalent. Regardless of what it is called, it makes an excellent dessert, especially when mixed with whipped heavy cream and spread over fresh berries. This recipe combines the sabayon with the whipped cream. If you wish to have the sabayon plain, simply stop at that step.
Ingredients:(4 servings)
5 Egg yolks
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup champagne
1 cup heavy cream, whipped until stiff and chilled
4 cups fresh mixed berries like raspberries, blueberries and cut up strawberries
mint leaves for garnish
Preparation:
Set up a double boiler or a medium sized stainless steel bowl over a pot of simmering water. Make sure the bottom of the bowl is not touching the water.
Remove the bowl from the heat but leave the water to simmer. In the bowl, using a whisk, beat the eggs and sugar together approximately three minutes until pale yellow. Slowly whisk in the champagne and set the bowl over the simmering water. Continue to whisk constantly, approximately 10 to 15 minutes, until eggs triple in volume, thicken and reach a temperature of 140 degrees when measured with an instant read thermometer. The egg mixture should slightly stiffen but still hold air. Remove from the heat and cool the mixture completely in the refrigerator.
When mixture is cool, gently fold in the prepared whipped cream. Fill 4 wine glasses with berries. Splash the berries with champagne and then ladle about two ounces of sabayon over the berries. Garnish with a mint leaf. A raspberry liquor may be substituted for the champagne in the recipe. Enjoy!!
I hope you have gained a little appreciation of the influence of French culinary history on modern cooking and a little better understanding of the use of Bain-Marie or double boiler type cooking when preparing sauces that require an emulsion. Give some of these recipes a try and if at first you don't succeed, try again. In the end, you will get the hang of it and they can really take your meals up a notch.
