Sauces

The next chapter is on sauces. Sauces are essential to french cooking, so I have learned. Take a nice omelet, add hollandaise sauce and viola! Something simple and and nice becomes something delectable and savorable. My experience was with meatballs.
My husband and I wanted to have Swedish meatballs unfortunately I had no recipe to go by, but the Swedish meatballs that I've had have always had a sweet brown sauce. So I turned to my Julia Child Cookbook. I learned a sauce consists of a few important components: a good roux, hot liquid, enrichment's and time. The most delicate sauces are cooked for 2 hours or as long as a whole day! The roux is made with fat (or butter) and flour. No more than 3 Tbsp of flour per cup of liquid for a thick sauce. For a good sauce I had to first cook the roux for several minutes (little bubbles) this step is key because if I didn't cook the roux long enough it would make the sauce pasty and raw tasting. Next I stirred in the beef stock and other seasonings, and let it simmer for a few minutes to thicken to the desired consistency. Adding butter or cream to enrich the sauce a few minutes before serving.
I dumped the hot meatballs into the sauce and served them spilling over the edge of mashed potatoes with salad on the side. It was delicious and I was impressed with how simple it was to make such a top notch sauce.
Sauces come in many forms, there are marinara sauces, brown sauces, white sauces, and gravy. I look forward to making hollandaise and Mayonnaise.