Classics & Standards – Page 13

Beef Bourguignon – France’s legendary beef stew

The National Weather Service announced back in the fall of last year that winter here in the Pacific Northwet would be colder and wetter than normal, and they’d be right. We’ve had snow on the ground, in places, for weeks here already. Just north of us, ponds around Vancouver, B. C. have frozen hard enough to skate on for the first time in decades. This cold snap has, in fact, hit a lot of North America. I’m sure this is why I’m so obsessed with hearty, rich comfort foods right now – Stuff like Beef Bourguignon, France’s legendary beef stew.

Bourgogne - Where the magic starts — Bourgogne – Where the magic starts

Just reading the name Beef Bourguignon is enough to know it’s French, but more to the point, it’s from Bourgogne – Burgundy – And that’s what Bourguignon means, d’accord? About 100 km southeast of Paris and stretching for some 350 km toward Switzerland, Burgundy is crossed by a series of working canals, and rightfully famous for deep, complex red wines that bear the regions name, (as well as Pinot, Chardonnay, Chablis, and Beaujolais.) There are also stunningly lovely chateaus, legendary mustard from the regional capitol of Dijon, and Charolais cattle – Some of the finest beef in the world.

Late in the sultry month of August, the commune of Saulieu holds the Fête du Charolais, a paean to meat lovers, a celebration of Charolais beef featuring, naturellement, Boeuf Bourguignon. With a distinct taste reflecting its stunning terroir, Charolais beef has perfect tenderness that yields great beef bourguignon. All that said, most of us probably won’t have Charolais Beef available, (Although there are American Charolais cattle raisers out there, FYI.) Regardless of the beef you’ll use, when you combine it with wine, spirits, fresh veggies and herbs, you’ll be hard pressed to go wrong.

While the roots of beef bourguignon go far back in time, it was Auguste Escoffier who made it famous. Of course, dishes that would bear the Maestro’s stamp couldn’t be rustic, (perish the thought!), so his 1903 recipe upgraded the dish to haute cuisine, utilizing a rather large chunk of beef. It took Julia Child, some seventy years later, to return things back toward the rustic again, advocating the use of cubed stew beef.

Like so many iconic regional dishes, there really is no definitive beef bourguignon recipe, regardless of what anyone tells you – Including bourguignon chefs. Why? Because like spaghetti, or mac and cheese, everybody does it a bit differently – What goes into the mix is, as often as not, what’s good that day – And this is exactly as it should be. What is set in stone is the cooking process, and that’s what I’ll share with y’all today. I’ll also note that there are things assumed to be seminal to the recipe that just really aren’t – Mushrooms for one, and pearl onions for another – Sure, those can and should go in the pot if you like them and they’re readily at hand, but if they’re not, it doesn’t mean that what you’re making isn’t authentic.

The techniques employed to make beef bourguignon correctly are braising and stewing, and that requires a bit of clarification to separate those techniques from searing and roasting, their higher heat first cousins. Searing beef, to get a nice caramelized crust on it, is done in a dry pan over high heat. Braising, from the French verb braiser, is a semi-wet, medium heat cooking method, designed to brown meat and infuse it with the flavors of the wet adjuncts that share the pan. Stewing, when done in the oven or on the stove top, is a relatively low temperature, wet cooking process, while roasting is a high heat, dry method. The high heat techniques work best for lean cuts, (like a roast, of course). Tougher, fattier cuts benefit most from braising and stewing – The lower, slower methods that provide the time needed to break down connective tissue, making things nice and tender.

Here’s our take on this iconic dish. Feel free to make it yours. Pay attention to the techniques and the order of operation – That’ll get you where you want to go – And again, everything else is free reign. Take note of our choice for the spirit employed – We don’t have cognac in the house, and I ain’t buying it just for a recipe – You could use brandy, Armagnac, or frankly, any spirit that floats your boat – Bourbon would go great, too. Another case in point – We served ours over rice, while tradition holds that you use thick slices of good country bread rubbed with garlic – If I’d had good bread on hand, I’d have done that, but I didn’t, so – get the picture? Innovate, whenever you want to or must – A recipe is a template, not gospel, so tweak it to your liking. If parsnips or turnips or some other great winter root veggie floats your boat, throw it in there – It’ll still be tres bien when you’re done.

Beef Bourguignon a la UrbanMonique

1 Pound Stew Beef
4 slices thick cut Bacon
3-4 Carrots
1 medium Sweet or Yellow Onion
2 cloves Garlic
1/2 Bottle Pinot Noir, (Yes, that’s what red Burgundy is, in fact)
2 Cups Beef Broth
1 1/2 Ounces Reposado Tequila
1 Tablespoon Tomato Paste
1 teaspoon Thyme
1/2 teaspoon ground black Pepper
1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt
2 Tablespoons Avocado Oil, (Olive is just fine too.)
2 California Bay Leaves
1 Tablespoon Unsalted Butter
1 Tablespoon Wondra Flour

Rinse and peel carrots and onions.

Place the flat side of a chef’s knife on top of the garlic cloves and smack the blade with the palm of your hand to smash the garlic – It doesn’t need to be pulverized – you just want to get the skin loose. Peel and trim garlic.

Cut the onion in half, then cut each half into quarters. Carefully cut the carrots in half lengthwise, then into half rounds about 1/2″ thick. Mince the garlic.

Preheat oven to 250° F.

Place a Dutch oven, (or heavy stock pot with a tight fitting lid), over medium heat and add the oil – Allow to heat through.

Cut the bacon into lardons – Chunks about 1/2″ square.

Sauté the bacon in the oil until the lardons start to crisp, about 3-5 minutes. Transfer the bacon onto a paper towel with a slotted spoon.

Add the beef to the hot fat and braise until the beef is lightly browned on all sides, about 3-5 minutes. Use the slotted spoon to transfer the meat onto the towel with the bacon.

The beef, nicely browned, ready to set aside

If you’re left with a fair amount of beef juice and fat, as we were, carefully pour that into a small bowl and set aside.

Save that beef juice and fat to reincorporate

Add another Tablespoon of oil to the Dutch oven and allow to heat through.

Add the carrots and onions to the hot oil and sauté until the onions are slightly browned, about 3-5 minutes.

Veggies sautéed until the onions are slightly browned

Add the garlic and sauté until the raw garlic smell dissipates, about 1 minute.

Add the tequila to the veggies and flambé (light it) to burn off the alcohol – Be careful – Don’t get your face or hands close to the Dutch oven when you do this!

With a wooden spoon, scrape all the dark stuff from the bottom of the Dutch oven.

Add enough beef broth to almost cover the stew

Add the wine, beef, reserved beef juice and fat, and bacon back into the Dutch oven and stir.

Add enough beef stock to almost cover the mix.

Add the tomato paste, thyme, salt, pepper, and bay leaves. Stir to incorporate.

Cover the Dutch oven and place on a middle rack in your oven. Stew the bourguignon at 250° F for 75 to 90 minutes, until the meat and veggies are fork tender.

Remove from the oven and uncover. Combine butter and flour in a measuring cup, then add a cup or so of broth. Mix with a fork until the blend thickens. Pour back into the bourguignon and stir in thoroughly to incorporate.

Monter au beurre - Adding cold Butter to a Sauce or stew at the end of cooking — Monter au beurre – Adding cold Butter to a Sauce or stew at the end of cooking

Serve over crusty toasted bread rubbed with garlic, or rice, or egg noodles. Garnish with fresh parsley if you like.

Beef Bourguignon - Heaven in a bowl — Beef Bourguignon – Heaven in a bowl

Goes great with a glass of that red, and it’ll be spectacular the next day.

bon apetit.

A NOTE ON THAT LAST PIC –

i posted this on social media, and a friend of a friend wrote this in responses – “I can tell you’re an accomplished chef, so why would you post such a poor picture of your work?”

It’s a fair question, so here’s the fair answer. This site is, as it’s subtitled, about real food in real kitchens. For a time, to get something accepted at the most swanky food porn sites required professional level photography – I for one think that’s total bullshit. I posted this because it’s the bowl I ate that night. Expecting all of my images to be professional, or all your meals to turn out incredibly photogenic, has nothing to do with cooking – certainly not at home. It sets up an impossible level of expectation that gets in the way of learning to cook. If and when presentation is important at home, we do it, but we do so because we like to, not because it must be done. This site is about real cooking, and real cooking isn’t always perfect. And besides, I’ll bet you’d bloody swoon over that bowl if I’d handed it to ya – that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Two Hour Beef Stew

It's nasty out, which means it's perfect stew weather! — It’s nasty out, which means it’s perfect stew weather!

Dateline, December 12th, 2016. Second snow storm in as many days, most schools closed, accidents everywhere, our little street is a skating rink. Wherever you are, a bunch of you said, ‘Recipe, please,’ when I posted a pic the other day of a Two Hour Beef Stew. Couldn’t ask for a better day than today to delve in, so here we go.

First off, can a stew made in a couple of hours really taste that good? Won’t your crew know it didn’t have proper time to really get good? The answers are, yup, without a doubt, and nope, they won’t. Yeah, it’ll be great the next day, but done right, you’ll fool ’em into thinking you slaved all day if you do things as I’ll show you here.

There are four tricks/secrets/thangs ya gotta do if you want a stew that’s been made quite quickly to taste like it took forever. They’re simple things, and they also happen to define a primary difference between what a professional cook turns out versus the typical home chef. They are as follows –
1. Always start with aromatics,
2. Coat you meat lightly in flour and allow it to caramelize,
3. Deglaze your pan after those are done, and
4. Season as you go.
Do that, in combination with judicious choices of ingredients, and you’re in like Flynn.

The beauty of beef stew lies in its simplicity. Sure, you can add more things than you’re gonna find in a can of Hormel, but you don’t really need to – Beef, stock, carrots, potatoes, onion, a little tomato paste, salt and pepper. Of course, if you want to add more stuff, you certainly can – I like tomatoes, because they add a nice tang to the broth and help cut the richness as well. Here’s what we’ll use –

Beef Stew a la UrbanMonique

1 Pound Stew Beef
1/2 Cup diced sweet Onion
2 Carrots, sliced into rounds
2 Yukon Gold Potatoes
4 Cups Chicken Stock
1 14 oz. can diced, fire roasted Tomatoes
2 Tablespoons Avocado Oil
2 Tablespoons Wondra Flour
2 Tablespoons Tomato Paste
Juice of 1/2 small Lemon
1/2 teaspoon Lemon Thyme
2 Bay Leaves
Sea Salt
Fresh ground Pepper

We start with the aromatics – combinations of veggies and seasoning, sautéed in a little fat. This is the critical first step to building a great stew, soup, curry, stir fry, or house made stock. Onion, garlic, carrot, celery, parsnip, turnip, bay, sweet peppers and chiles, leeks, celeriac, and jicama all qualify. And there’s a reason that some of these combinations have venerable names of their own – Mire Poix from France, with onion, carrot and celery. Sofrito in Spain and Soffritto in Italy – Garlic, onion, tomato, and garlic and/or onion in olive oil, respectively. Garlic, spring onion, and ginger in many Asian cuisines. The Holy Trinity of Cajun cooking – onion, celery, and green pepper. Suppengrün in Germany, powered by carrot, celeriac, and leeks. Sautéed in oil or butter, ghee or coconut milk, these simple vegetables provide a subtle backbone of great flavor. Try building something without them, and you’ll immediately understand why they’re critical to success – Starting your stew with great aromatics guarantees that you’re building from a strong foundation.

Chop your aromatics to relatively uniform size prior to cooking. You needn’t be super fussy about this. For stew, a large dice of about 3/4″ will serve just fine, and if you want to leave your carrots as rounds, go ahead and do that. Cutting things up produces nice bite sized pieces, and provides more surface area for those great flavors to be released from.

In your stew pot, over medium heat, add a tablespoon or two of oil. I like Avocado Oil for its buttery flavor and high smoke point, but Olive will do just fine too. Once the oil is heated through, toss in your onion, carrot, and potatoes, and season them lightly with salt and pepper. Sauté until the onion starts to turn translucent. Salt and pepper is all you need for seasoning at this point – Oily, pungent herbs like bay, thyme, rosemary, and oregano will get the flavors sautéed right out of them if they’re introduced too early in the process. When your aromatics have cooked for 3 to 5 minutes, transfer them into a bowl.

Now it’s time for the meat, and here is where things also get done to ensure that we’re making stew and not soup – That means introducing a thickener. Cut stew beef down to roughly 3/4″ chunks if it’s not there already. Flour is the agent of choice for beef stew, and Wondra is the flour you want. Cooked and dried when it’s processed, Wondra is much less prone to clumping than ordinary flour, and makes wonderfully smooth sauces and stocks. A couple of tablespoons added to a pound of stew beef, a pinch of sea salt and a few twists of pepper, tossed by hand to assure a nice, even coat is all you need. Throw the floured beef into the stew pot over medium low heat, and then let it be. Let each side of your little beef cubes cook long enough for a nice, deep brown crust to develop – This means don’t mess with it inordinately – Let each side work before gently turning to the next. When your beef has a nice, even caramelized crust, toss it into the bowl with your veggies. This is a step that is far too often omitted or seriously short changed, and that’s not good – Take the time to do it right, and you’ll be amply repaid with great flavor. And trust me when I tell you that that flour will provide all the thickening power you’ll need.

Caramelization is the key to great stew meat

Now comes deglazing. By this time, the sautéing of those veggies and the caramelization of your beef has left a wealth of dark stuff on the bottom of your stew pot. Amateurs think this will taste nasty and burned. Savvy chefs know that this stuff, called fond, is the source of some serious mojo. Take a good sniff of that pot – Does it smell good, like stuff you want to eat? If so, you’re go for deglaze, (and if not, ah well – wash that pot with a tear in your eye and start fresh, but you’ll be missing out on serious flavor.) deglazing frees up all those wonderful naughty bits to join the stew party. Get a stiff spatula, and a cup of the chicken stock called for in the recipe. Turn the heat up to medium high, wait a minute for the pot to heat through, then splash that stock in there. You’ll get a cloud of heavenly smelling steam and heat. Use your spatula to scrape all that good stuff loose and incorporate it into the stock. As soon as that’s done, add the rest of the stock, turn the heat back down to medium, and let everything heat through.

Now toss your sautéed veggies and meat into the pot, add the tomatoes and bay, tomato paste, and lemon juice and stir to incorporate. Season one more time with salt, pepper, and lemon thyme. Turn the heat down to low, and let that magic work for a couple of hours.

2 hour beef stew right after final assembly

What you’ll end up with will taste like it worked all day. Serve it with crusty bread and a nice glass of red wine or a local beer. You don’t have to tell them how fast you did it.

2 hour stew ready to rock - you can see how rich this stuff really is! — 2 hour stew ready to rock – you can see how rich this stuff really is!

Sauce Tomate

And finally we arrive at the last of the five Escoffiere French Mother sauces – Sauce Tomate.

Tomatoes aren’t often associated all that much with classic haute French cuisine, but they wee indeed on the scene, as we noted with sauce Espagnole. Here again, we have a clear cut case of adoption of a great ingredient from the neighbors. All that considered, the roots of the tomato plant may not hail from where many of us think they do. I’ve heard a lot of folks claim that the Europeans, specifically the Spanish, brought tomatoes to North America – that’s more or less correct, but in a very round about way – The Aztec people, who ate and cultivated tomatoes as far back as the eighth century, are actually where the Spanish got tomatoes from, in a very nasty manner.

Tomatoes are far more diverse than we might realize. There are tens of thousands of variants cultivated all around the world – there’s even a Siberian one designed to be grown indoors. There are thirteen recognized wild species, and probably well more than that – There is much we do not yet know of their area of origin. Of the known wild species, three will readily cross with domestic varieties, and nine more can do so with certain caveats.

But I digress – Back to the Spanish. The horror show that was Hernan Cortez and the Spanish campaign destroyed all things Aztec from 1519 to 1521. Cortez took seeds from what was called, in the Nahuatl (Aztec), language ‘xitomatl’ seeds back to Spain, where they were called tomate, and the European introduction was made. Spain’s relatively temperate Mediterranean climate agreed with the tomato, and cultivation began forthwith. Yet for roughly a hundred years, tomatoes were grown purely as an ornamental crop – the Spanish though they were pretty, and adorned their tables with bowls of reddish fruit – It would not be until the early 1600s that they began to actually eat them.

Tomatoes spread quite rapidly across Europe. Italy began tomato cultivation in the mid 1500s, but didn’t eat them until the late 1600s. England, and subsequently the North American colonies, received seeds around 1600, but wouldn’t eat or cook with the fruit until the mid 1700s. The problem, of course, was the tomato’s family ties.

Solanum lycopersicum, AKA the tomato plant, belongs to the family Solanaceae, AKA Nightshade. When we hear the word Nightshade, we assume bad things, but the fact is this family is incredibly broad, sporting everything from herbs and vines to shrubs, trees, and even epiphytes. Many variants are cultivated, (tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, and chiles, for instance), even some of the ones that contain potent and highly toxic alkaloids. Others, like Deadly Nightshade (Atropa Belladonna), not so much.

In any event, once folks got the clue that tomatoes not only could be safely eaten, but were downright delicious, culinary experimentation got underway. It became readily apparent just what the tomato was especially good at – Their high liquid content, coupled with a natural ability to thicken when cooked without the need for adjuncts, (like a roux, or bread crumbs), made them a shoe in for sauces. Care to give that a test? Chop up some good fresh tomatoes, preferably from your garden, and sauté them over medium heat with a little olive oil, salt and pepper, until the raw tomato smell dissipates. Eat them warm, maybe with a hunk of fresh bread and a glass off decent red.

Boom – Any questions?

Some 300+ years later, tomato sauce in one form or another is found everywhere, and widely claimed as indigenous dish, or a favorite import. A veritable cornucopia of good things are added to the root fruit to make sauces – water, wine, stock, veggies, other fruit, nuts, meat, poultry, and fish, bean curd, and many more – a veritable pantheon of tomato versatility.

The French version, as championed by Escoffier, is quite different from most other variants you might be familiar with – In addition to the usual suspects, Escoffier included pork belly, veal stock, a ham bone, and a roux. Those deceptively simple adjuncts yield a sauce of surprising depth and complexity. It’s not a sauce you want to use all the time, given the added calories and potential for clogged arteries, but it’s a real treat for a special occasion.

For our recipe, I’ll call for canned tomatoes, since that’s what we have to work with most of the time. I prefer whole tomatoes, because it’s my belief you get more flavor from them. If you don’t have a stick or conventional blender, (Gods forbid!), then you can certainly sub crushed or diced. If it’s that time of year for fresh tomatoes and you’re of a mind to use them, you’ll want 8-10 cups.

If you get a sudden wild hair to make this stuff and don’t feel like a trip to the store, bacon will work just fine as a sub for belly and bone; just add a tablespoon of good olive oil to compensate and you’re good to go.

Sauce Tomate
2 28 ounce cans Whole Tomatoes, (or 8-10 cups fresh)
4 Cups Veal Stock, (Chicken is fine)
2 Cups diced Onion
1 Cup Diced Carrot
1 Cup diced Celery
2 Ounces Pork Belly
1 Ham Bone
1 clove Garlic
2 tablespoons Butter
2 Tablespoons Flour
8-10 Black Pepper Corns
3-4 sprigs fresh Parsley
1 Bay Leaf, (Turkish preferred, California is fine)
1 sprig fresh Thyme, (or 1/2 teaspoon dried)
Sea Salt to taste.

Preheat oven to 300° F and set a rack in the middle position.

Combine the pepper corns, thyme, parsley, and bay leaf in cheesecloth and tie with kitchen twine – This is your bouquet garni.

Cut pork belly into 1/2″ cubes, (lardons).

In a cast iron Dutch oven over medium heat, sauté the pork belly until the fat is liquified and rendered free.

Pork belly renders much more fat than bacon

Add the onion, carrot, celery, and garlic. Sauté until the onion is translucent but not browned,about 3-5 minutes.

Mire poix - 50% onion, 25% each carrot and celery — Mire poix – 50% onion, 25% each carrot and celery

Remove tomatoes from cans and pulse with a stick blender in a non-reactive mixing bowl until they’re evenly crushed but not liquified, (or process in a conventional blender). If you’re using fresh, just rough dice everything you’ve got, removing tops and bottoms, of course.

That's a lot of fresh tomatoes... — That’s a lot of fresh tomatoes…

Add tomatoes, ham bone, stock, a pinch of sea salt, and the bouquet garni to the Dutch oven, and mix with a large spoon to incorporate. Stuff the bouquet down into the middle with your spoon.

Allow the sauce to come to a simmer.

Add butter to a microwave safe measuring cup and melt. Add the flour and combine to form the roux. Ladle a cup of liquid from the sauce into the measuring cup and blend thoroughly with a fork. Add this to the sauce and stir to incorporate.

Transfer the Sauce to the oven. Reduce oven heat to 250° F, and cover with the top just slightly cracked. Roast for 2 hours.

Remove the sauce from the oven and uncover.

You can leave the sauce rustic, or give it a few pulses with a stick blender if you prefer a smooth consistency – just don’t forget to fish out the bouquet and the bone in either case!

You can now use what you need and allow the rest to cool to room temp prior to freezing.

Use the sauce straight, add additional stuff, or create a daughter sauce if you like – Barbecue, calamari, creole, Espagnole, and a la Vodka are all made therefrom. Here are a few of those to set you on your way.

Sauce Creole
2 Cups Sauce Tomate
1 Cup Chicken Stock
1/2 Cup fine diced Green Pepper
1/2 Cup diced Green Onion
2 Tablespoons fresh Basil leaves, cut a la chiffonade
1 teaspoon Oregano
1 teaspoon Thyme
1 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce
2-3 shakes Tabasco Sauce
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
2 Tablespoons Unsalted butter
Sea Salt to taste

In a heavy sauté pan over medium heat, add the oil and butter and heat through.

Add the green pepper and onion, and season lightly with salt. Sauté until the onions start to brown slightly.

Add the tomate sauce, stock, basil, thyme, oregano, Worcestershire and Tabasco sauces, and stir to incorporate.

Bring the sauce to a simmer, then reduce heat to just maintain that.

Allow to simmer for 15-20 minutes.

Taste and adjust seasoning as needed or desired.

Serve hot.

Sauce a la Vodka
2 Cups Sauce Tomate
1 Cup heavy Cream
1/4 Cup Vodka
1/4 Cup fresh Basil leaves, cut a la chiffonade
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1 clove Garlic, minced
Sea Salt and Black Pepper to taste

In a heavy sauté pan over medium heat, add the olive oil and heat through.

Sauté the garlic until it begins to brown lightly.

Add the vodka to the hot pan and scrape all the little dark bits free with a fork.

When the booze smell has dissipated, add the sauce tomate, and basil and stir to incorporate.

Season with a pinch of sea salt and 2-3 twists of pepper.

Reduce heat to maintain a low simmer, and cook for 10 minutes.

Bring heat back up to medium. When the sauce is simmering vigorously, add the cream and stir to incorporate.

Taste and adjust salt and pepper as needed.

Reduce heat to a bare simmer and cook for 15 minutes.

Sauce is now ready to be ladled over and tossed with fresh pasta, or cooled to room temperate and frozen for future use

Sauce Calamari
2 Cups sauce Tomate
1/2 Cup Red Wine
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
2 cloves fresh Garlic, minced
1 teaspoon crushed red Chile
Sea salt
Black Pepper

In a heavy sauté pan over medium heat, add the oil and heat through.

Add the garlic and sauté until it become to brown slightly.

Add the Ted wine to the hot pan and scrape all the little dark bits from the pan with a fork.

When the raw alcohol smell has dissipated, add the sauce tomate, and crushed chiles.

Season with a pinch of sea salt and 2-3 twists of pepper.

Reduce hat to maintain a bare simmer and cook for 15 minutes.

Serve hot, or allow to cool for freezing.

Sauce Hollandaise

Onward with the Mother Sauces – Today, it’s Sauce Hollandaise. Note how, thus far in our quest, these legendary pillars of classic French cuisine seem to all hail from elsewhere? That’s not a slight or a slam. It is, rather a paean to ingenuity, and to wholehearted adaptation of good things to eat.

Hollandaise, like many of its sisters, has somewhat veiled roots. The name implies Holland, of course, and one school of thought has the original version brought to France from the Netherlands some time in the 17th century, where it was used a sauce for fish. My Larousse Gastronomique, on the other hand, claims it as French from the get go, and printed French recipes are found as far back as the mid 1600s; some are quite close to the modern iteration, while others come from farther afield – There are even green versions mentioned, flavored with fresh parsley. The recipe that yields Hollandaise as we now know it, employing a rich emulsion of egg yolks and butter, was institutionalized in the late 1800s, commensurate with Auguste Escoffier’s reign. Regardless of from where and when it stems, it’s delicious, decadent, and something you just gotta have every now and again.

Hollandaise is an emulsion, which means one of two things in cooking – either fat dispersed into water, or water dispersed into fat. Hollandaise is the former, and that’s important to understand when considering that it’s made with egg yolks. While both yolk and whites are protein rich, it’s the cooks ability to unravel and mesh those proteins that allows us to turn a bunch of fat into an emulsion, (perhaps more importantly, one that will hold long enough to use in a dish without breaking). In this regard, yolks present a distinct disadvantage over whites – They have almost no water, and their proteins are wound far tighter. The best illustration of this is provided by separately whipping yolks and whites in order to increase their volume, as you would for Belgian waffle batter.

While egg whites will whip and expand quite readily, virtually no amount of whipping will appreciably increase the volume of yolks with nothing else added. This happens because the proteins in egg yolks are too dense to expand when they stand alone, even when coaxed by mechanical beating – water is what is needed to do the deed – add a tablespoon to the yolk of a large egg and it’ll expand with vigorous whipping, but the resultant foam will be quite short lived. Those yolk proteins are so tightly packed that, even though you’ve introduced a bunch of air and force expansion, they’re still fundamentally disinclined to truly relax. In light of this fact, you might be surprised at the fact that most recipes for Hollandaise don’t call for water, and frankly, I don’t get that, either.

Acids, like lemon juice or vinegar, will also relax yolk proteins to some degree, but the most effective catalyst is gentle heat, with an emphasis on gentle. To the chagrin of many a home cook, (and plenty of Pros, truth be told), if you heat those yolks too fast, you get scrambled eggs, and nothing will take the wind out of a cooks sails faster. Overcooked hollandaise is easily the Number One Fail for home cooks. My solution, (and believe me, it’s as much for my peace of mind as it is for yours), is to use far less heat than most recipes, and no direct heat at all. Doing so solves the overcooking problem, and the overall fussiness of preparing Hollandaise. The simple truth is that indirect, (mostly steam), heat within a double boiler, coupled with the latent heat from the melted butter, is more than sufficient to get the job done. Here’s how you do it.

Sauce Hollandaise - Gentle is the word — Sauce Hollandaise – Gentle is the word

Painless Hollandaise

4 large, fresh Egg Yolks

1/2 Cup fresh Butter

1 Tablespoon Cold Water

2 teaspoons fresh Lemon Juice

2-3 shakes Tabasco Sauce

Separate eggs. Place whites in an airtight container and refrigerate or freeze for future projects.

Put about 2″ of water in a sauce pan sized such that a mixing bowl or double boiler will fit within. You want the bottom of the bowl you’ll work in to be above the water by a good 2″. Not doing this right is a primary cause of failed hollandaise – Too much heat, and/or heating too fast.

Turn heat to medium low.

In a separate sauce pan, melt butter over medium low heat.

When the water starts to simmer, turn off the heat.

In a small mixing bowl, combine egg yolks, water, and lemon juice.

Whisk briskly by hand to combine, until blend thickens and the volume has increased notably, about 2 minutes.

Place bowl over the hot water pan.

Gently but steadily whisk the egg yolk mixture to heat it through, about 1 – 2 minutes.

Begin slowly adding butter in a thin stream; add a few seconds worth, whisking gently but constantly, until the yolk mixture has incorporated the butter, then add a little more, and keep doing so until all the butter is absorbed.

The sauce will thicken somewhat, but possibly not as much as you like it to end up, but don’t sweat that point; as the sauce sits while you prep the rest of the dish, it’ll thicken a bit more.

Whisk in the Tabasco, then set the whole double boiler rig on the back of your oven, and cover with a clean towel.

With that, you should make, if nothing else, Eggs Benedict, and fresh asparagus, right?

Sauce Espagnole

Onward with the Mother Sauces! Today, it’s sauce Espagnole. As intimated by the moniker, this mother sauce has its roots in Spain. As with Béchamel, Espagnole is another example of French innovation, adapting and refining the neighbor’s good works. The roots of this venerable sauce were documented in Spain in the late eighteen hundreds, and several derivatives are noted in regional cookbooks from back then.

Espagnole is potent stuff – While you certainly can enjoy it straight, it’s more often used as a base for derivative sauces, like Bourguignonne, (Espagnole, with red wine, shallot, and a bouquet garni), sauce charcutière, (Espagnole with chopped cornichons), and sauce Africaine, (Espagnole with tomato, onion, bell pepper, basil, thyme, and bay leaf), to name a few.

In a very real sense, the preparation of espagnole mirrors what is done to make dark stocks – bones, veggies, beef, and seasonings are allowed to get quite dark, which effectively magnifies the strength and breadth of flavor in the final product.

There are, of course, dueling origin stories for this legendary stuff. One popular version has Spanish cooks preparing the wedding meal for Louis XIII and Queen Anne, adding tomatoes, (introduced from Spain), to a typical French brown sauce. Another claims that the Bourbon kings time in Spain created the necessary amalgamation, and brought it back to France thereafter. However it appeared, Espagnole has never left, to our great benefit.

Making Espagnole is not terribly difficult, with one glaring exception – The true, classic version requires veal or beef demi-glacé – And that presents a bit of a catch 22. See, to make classic demi-glacé, you need – you guessed it – sauce Espagnole. Neat, huh? On top of that, you’ll also need somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 pounds of bones, a gallon of water, a quart of red wine, and many, many cups of prepped veggies – Oh, and 7 to 8 hours of cooking time to boot – Sound like fun? Actually, it is, and more importantly, making demi-glacé from scratch has much to teach us about patience, reduction, and chemistry, but that’s a lesson for another day. Therefore, we’ll need a sub or a reasonable cheat – fortunately, both are easy to come by, and either will work just fine.

The first option is a substitute, of which there are many. The current resurgence in home cooking has spawned a lot of gourmet accoutrements, and as such, bottled or boxed demi-glacé is abundant. That said, they’re not all created equally, so read your ingredients carefully – One of the most popular dried products includes all this bounty – ‘Wheat flour, corn starch, natural flavour, sugar, beef fat, salt, tomato powder, hydrolyzed soy/corn/wheat protein, monosodium glutamate, white wine solids, maltodextrin, onion powder, colour, guar gum, citric acid, spice, yeast extract, disodium guanylate, disodium inosinate, silicon dioxide and sulphites. May contain traces of milk ingredients.’ Yummy, huh?

If you’re of a mind to buy demi-glacé, I’ll recommend Williams-Sonoma. It’s not cheap, but it’s organic, and there’s no bullshit in it – It’s made right, from good stuff, hence the cost – That said, a little goes a long way, so it’s worth the splurge.

The second option is a cheat, and for my mind, this is your best bet. The version I like is what the venerable Julia Child called a “semi-demi-glace,” which cracks me up – Fact is, it works great, and is easy and quick to make. Here’s the drill.

Element Fe Forge and Ganesh Himal - Good stuff Maynard! — Element Fe Forge and Ganesh Himal – Good stuff Maynard!

Semi Demi Glacé
4 Cups Beef Stock, (homemade is best, good quality bought is fine)
2 Tablespoons Red Wine, (Burgundy does nicely)

In a heavy sauce pan over high heat, combine the stock and the red wine and bring to a boil.

Reduce the heat to the lowest setting you’ve got, and allow the stock to simmer gently for 3-4 hours, until the stock has reduced to roughly 1 cup in volume. When it’s done, the demi-glacé should nicely coat the back of a spoon.

Skim any scum that rises to the top off and discard.

Remove from heat and allow to cool in a non-reactive bowl.

Demi glace will last refrigerated in an air tight container for a couple of weeks. If you want to go longer, freeze it in an ice cube tray. Just pop out a cube to add to a sauce, and you’re good to go. For our use, we’ll reconstitute it in water – That may seem sort of silly, but all that reduction has changed the flavors mightily, so fear not. When you use demi-glacé in that manner, a ratio of 1:4 glacé to water will do the trick. You can adjust with more water or glacé as you see fit, of course.

OK, with that handled, it’s time to make the mother sauce.

Sauce Espagnole
4 Cups reconstituted demi-glacé concentrate
1/4 Cup Unsalted Butter
1/4 Cup All Purpose Flour
1/4 Cup Tomato Purée
1 medium Onion
1 small Carrot
1 stalk Celery
2 cloves Garlic
1 Bay Leaf, (Turkish is best, California is fine)
Pinch of Sea Salt
A few twists ground Pepper

Rinse, trim, and dice the onion, carrot, and celery.

Trim, peel, and mince the garlic.

In a large, heavy sauce pan over medium heat, add the butter and melt completely.

Add the flour and combine with a whisk. Cook the roux for 7-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the roux has a nice, brown color and a nutty smell.

Begin adding stock in a thin stream, whisking constantly. Let the roux absorb a dose of stock and reheat before adding more – I refer to this as not breaking the roux – it’ll start out like thick mashed potatoes and gradually get to the liquid sauce phase – Take your time and let that happen rather gradually.

Once all the stock has been added to the roux, toss in the veggies, including the tomato purée and stir to incorporate.

Add the bay leaf, and season with a pinch of sea salt and a few twists of pepper.

Reduce the heat to low, maintaining a bare simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 40 minutes more.

Remove the sauce from the stove, and carefully pour it through a single mesh strainer or chinoise, into a non-reactive bowl.

Allow to cool.

Rockin' my Ganesh Himal fair trade apron! — Rockin’ my Ganesh Himal fair trade apron!

So, what to do with this stuff? Well, how about those derivatives I mentioned up yonder? Bourguignonne is great for beef (or veggies if you tweak the stock – See below), sauce Charcutière is fabulous with pork, and sauce Africaine pairs wonderfully with chicken or veggies. Here’s how.

Sauce Bourguinonne
3/4 Cup dry red Burgundy Wine
3/4 Cup Stock (Beef is traditional, chicken or veggie are just fine)
1/2 Cup Sauce Espagnole
1/4 Cup chopped white button Mushrooms
2 Tablespoons diced Shallot
2 Tablespoons extra virgin Olive Oil
2 strips thick cut Bacon, diced
2 cloves Garlic, minced
4-5 leaves fresh Basil, (or 1 teaspoon dried)
1 Turkish Bay Leaf (California is fine too)
1 sprig fresh Thyme (or 1 teaspoon dried)
Pinch of Sea Salt, a couple twists of Pepper

Combine basil, bay leaf, and thyme in a tea ball or tied into cheese cloth – This is a bouquet garni.

In a heavy sauté pan over medium high heat, add the oil and allow to heat through. Add the chopped mushrooms and sauté for 2-3 minutes until they’re soft.

Add the shallot and garlic and sauté for 1-2 minutes until the garlic has browned.

Add the wine, stirring to break up the dark stuff attached to the pan. Sauté for 6-8 minutes, until the wine has reduced by roughly 50%. Add the stock and stir to incorporate.

Reduce the heat to low, maintaining a bare simmer. Add the bacon, a pinch of sea salt, and a couple twists of pepper. Simmer for 5 minutes.

Add the sauce Espagnole and the bouquet, then increase the heat to medium, and stir to incorporate. Once a simmer has been restored, reduce the heat to low and whisk until the sauce is heated through.

Remove the sauce from heat, and pour through a single mesh strainer, into a non-reactive bowl, (discard the solids and the bouquet).

Serve hot.

Sauce Charcutière

2 Cups dry White Wine

1/2 Cup Sauce Espagnole
1/4 Cup diced Onion
2 tablespoons diced Cornichons
1 Tablespoon unsalted Butter
1 teaspoon Dijon Mustard
1/2 teaspoon Lemon Juice
1/4 teaspoon Sugar
In a heavy sauté pan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the onions and sauté for 1-2 minutes until they soften, (but don’t let them brown).

Add the wine and heat through until it starts to simmer. Reduce the heat to maintain a low simmer and cook until the wine has reduced by roughly 50%.

Add the sauce Espagnole and simmer for about 10 minutes.

Remove the sauce from heat, and pour through a single mesh strainer into a non-reactive bowl.

Add the mustard, lemon juice, sugar, and cornichons, stir to incorporate.

Serve hot.

Sauce Africaine
2 Cups dry White Wine
1/2 Cup Sauce Espagnole
1/4 Cup diced Tomato
1/4 Cup diced Onion
1/4 Cup diced green bell Pepper
2 Tablespoons extra virgin Olive Oil
1 clove minced Garlic
4-5 leaves fresh Basil, (or 1 teaspoon dried)
1 Turkish Bay Leaf (California is fine too)
1 sprig fresh Thyme (or 1 teaspoon dried)
Pinch of Sea Salt, a couple twists of Pepper

Combine basil, bay leaf, and thyme in a tea ball or tied into cheese cloth – This is a bouquet garni.

In a heavy sauté pan over medium heat add oil, and heat through. Add the onion and pepper and sauté for 2-3 minutes, until the onion is starting to turn translucent. Add the tomato and garlic! and sauté for another minute or two, until they’ve softened.

Add the white wine, and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to maintain a low simmer. Cook for 8-10 minutes, until the wine has reduced by roughly 50%.

Add the sauce Espagnole, stir to incorporate, and allow to return to a simmer.

Reduce the heat to the low, add the bouquet garni, and simmer for another 5 minutes.

Remove the sauce from heat, and pour through a single mesh strainer, into a non-reactive bowl, (discard the solids and the bouquet).

Season with salt and pepper, and serve hot.

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The Mother Sauces – Béchamel

Alright, enough screwing around – Back to the Escoffier version of the French Mother Sauces, as asked for and promised! We covered velouté, so it’s time for béchamel, (and down the line, espagnole, tomate, and hollandaise).

Béchamel - Creamy goodness! — Béchamel – Creamy goodness!

Béchamel is arguably the most versatile of those magic five, (although tomate might dispute that claim). So many derivatives come from it. Béchamel is a cream sauce, with a heart of roux, the combination of flour and fat that gives its richness to all variants. As much as it may pain French cuisine to say so, béchamel’s roots are predominantly Italian. In that country, besciamella, (or balsamella, or bechimella), have been around for hundreds of years prior to their cropping up in French cooking. In everything from pasta primavera to lasagna and cannelloni, besciamella has been used to tie many an Italian dish into a coherent whole. The secret weapon to those Italian cream sauces? A dusting of fresh ground nutmeg – Not enough of the latter to taste like nutmeg – rather just enough to hint at something exotic. Béchamel variants are found literally everywhere, but those roots run deepest in the heart of Europe.

Béchamel in its French incarnation first appeared in print in the mid seventeenth century, within François Pierre La Varenne eponymous work, Le Cuisinier François, the bible of early French haute cuisine, (that tome was so popular that it enjoyed some thirty editions, over three quarters of a century). That first sauce, named after the Chief Steward to King Louis XIV, was a veal based velouté with a copious amount of fresh cream added. The essence of béchamel is simplicity itself – butter, flour, milk, salt, and white pepper – That’s it.

From béchamel comes many famous derivatives. There’s mornay, with cheese added, and mushroom. There’s crème sauce, with cream replacing milk. Nantua adds an essence of shellfish, mustard seed in mustard sauce, and soubise, which adds minced onion. And of course, the basic sauce itself can be varied widely merely by altering the ratio of roux to milk – from a relatively thin and easily poured sauce containing one tablespoon each of butter and flour to one cup of milk, right up to three tablespoons of each roux constituent, which will yield a very thick sauce, indeed.

Fresh herbs are all you need for amazing béchamel

Really though, the sky is the limit. Have some lovely fresh herbs in your garden? Add a few whole leaves of basil, or sage, a stem of rosemary, or thyme – That silky net of gently simmered dairy fat will embrace and enhance whatever you add. Smoked salmon, kalamata olives, capers, fresh lemon juice and zest – one or two, maybe three such things are all you need to make exquisite sauce.

One important caveat, though – Something as simple as béchamel demands good, fresh ingredients. Old, low quality, or past their prime constituents will tube a béchamel faster than anything. On the contrary, fresh butter, flour, and milk will sing a far more complex tune than their simple roots might suggest.

How you make a béchamel is, for my mind, easily as important as what you make it with. This isn’t a sauce to just be dumped in a pan and heated. There are steps and rules, if great results are what you expect. For my mind, there are four guidelines you simply must follow.

Great ingredients and patience is the key to béchamel — Great ingredients and a little patience is the key to béchamel

1. Cook the roux first, and make sure that it remains a white roux – This means medium low heat, constant whisking, and paying close attention to the look and smell of the roux as it cooks. There’s nothing wrong with darker roux, many things demand the nuttier, more intense flavors they bring – But classic béchamel is a white sauce and should stay that way. Consider also this – the lighter the roux, the greater it’s thickening power – it takes considerably more of a dark roux to thicken an equal amount of whoever you’re working with.

2. The milk must be scalded prior to adding it to the roux – This is critical to a smooth, homogeneous sauce, and to fully integrating the milk without breaking the roux.

3. Don’t break the roux – the roux should be heated through and starting to bubble a bit before milk is gradually added. Rather than dumping a cup of milk in all at once, you need to slowly add a little milk and stir it into the roux – allow that to heat through and start to bubble, then add a little more milk and repeat – Doing this controls the splitting of starch chains and the forming of new bonds as the sauce is heated and milk is slowly introduced. The breaking of those starch chains means that the starch molecules don’t thicken as effectively, but by the same token, they’re less likely to reconnect to each other, which will leave a nasty, congealed mess instead of a lovely sauce. Think of it as if the milk is stretching a net of fat and starch – You want that net to hold a lot of liquid, not break and lose it – n’est pas? Take a look at the pics in this post on mac and cheese and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.

4. Cook the sauce long enough to achieve a slightly less thicker final product than you want, then do whatever you’re going to do with it. Chances are good that might involve more cooking, so don’t overdo it in the formative phase of things – That sauce will continue to thicken if it’s made into mac and cheese, lasagna, or stroganoff.

Classic Béchamel Sauce

1 Cup Whole Milk
2 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter
2 Tablespoons All Purpose Flour
1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt
1/4 teaspoon ground White Pepper
OPTIONAL:
1 or two grates of fresh Nutmeg
In a heavy sauce pan over medium high heat, add the milk. Watch the milk closely and whisk occasionally, until tiny bubbles form around the edge of the pan where it meets the milk. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a heavy sauce pan, add the butter and melt thoroughly.

Add the flour and whisk to incorporate. Cook while gently but constantly whisking, until the blend has stiffened up a bit, (this is caused by some of the moisture from the butter being driven out of the mix). This will take about 2 to 3 minutes or so.

Drizzle about a quarter cup of hot milk into the roux, and whisk steadily. The results will look like mashed potatoes. Whisk gently but constantly, until the heat of cooking causes the mix to bubble.

Add another quarter cup of milk, whisking gently but steadily, and allow it to heat completely through before adding more milk. Repeat with the he remaining half cup of milk.

Add the salt and pepper, taste, and adjust seasoning as desired. NOTE: If you’re adding herbs, proteins, etc, this is the time to thrown them in there.

Reduce the heat to low and continue cooking for up to 5 minutes. Stop when your sauce is a bit less thick than you want it. Remove from heat and do what you’re gonna do.
So, what are ya gonna do with that?

There’s Mac and Cheese, of course

And Beef Stroganoff,

How about Pasta Primavera, with whatever fresh veggies float your boat saluted in a little olive oil and butter, and angel hair pasta, thrown into a sauté pan with your sauce, tossed to coat and incorporate, and served with crusty bread and a fresh, green salad?

The rest of that journey is yours to take.