“It is the sauce that distinguishes a good chef. The Saucier is a soloist in the orchestra of a great kitchen.” – Fernand Point
So true! You can saute a chicken breast to perfection and make a great meal, but if you know how to make simple pan sauces, you can prepare a hundred different meals. Furthermore, you are going to find every cuisine has it’s own style of sauces, some similar, some completely different.
For example, Italian sauces for pasta like a Genovese sauce are much different from classic French sauces like a demi glace sauce. A simple soy ginger sauce for Chinese dumplings looks and tastes different from an Indian curry sauce. Even barbecue sauces can be different depending on where you live.
So here are some of my favorite sauces from various cuisines that you can enjoy with your favorite meals.
Perfect for Dipping Soft Pretzels This cheesy dipping sauce is thick and rich and very flavorful. I know it looks like a lot of ingredients, but it is basically a flavored mornay sauce (bechamel sauce with cheese), just like you’d make for macaroni and cheese. A perfect dipping sauce for Chef Jenni’s homemade best soft […]
How to Make a Simple Pan Sauce Pan sauces sound mysterious, but they’re not. They’re one pot cooking at its best! No need to get another pot dirty; just use the one you cooked your meat in. Pan sauces are generally intensely flavored, and since they are based on reduction, make sure you don’t add […]
Kids Can Cook Fettuccine with Simple Lobster Sauce My nine year old helped me throw this one together. We had some cooked Maine lobsters leftover from the weekend and wanted to use them in a dish everyone would eat. I was thinking Lobster Fra Diablo but wasn’t sure my girls would enjoy it so I […]
Pan Roasting a Rabbit Is Easier Than You Think The hard part is finding a rabbit to roast. I am lucky to live in an area where we have a farmer’s market. Eric, who runs Stoltzfus Fresh Poultry at the Ardmore Farmer’s Market, not only sells fresh farm chickens, eggs, ducks and turkeys, but he […]
What To Do With All Those Peaches When we came back from the Jersey shore last week we stopped at a farmer’s market and picked up a basket of ripe yellow Jersey peaches. With perfect texture and that distinctive aroma, Jersey peaches in season are one of my all time favorite fruits. We had a […]
Pan Fried Trout with a Lemon Butter Sauce Recipe UPDATED & REVISED I posted this recipe years ago on a visit back to Park City, Utah where we use to live. The photo I had up there didn’t look so good so I decided to make it again and try to take a better photograph. […]
Looking For A Quick & Easy Mid-Week Meal This recipe was adapted from one of my favorite cookbooks called The Complete Meat Cookbook by Bruce Aidells and Denis Kelly. If you want to learn all about cuts of meat and how to cook them, this is the book I would recommend. It’s one of those […]
Lamb Sundays Growing up with my mom we ate a lot of lamb on Sundays. I asked my mom why that was and she told me it was my Dad’s favorite meal. She would roast a leg of lamb with bone in on Sunday and we would eat it for 3 nights in a row […]
Dry Rub BBQ Sauce For those of you who are barbecuing today, here is a special treat from Chef Terrell Garrett. It is his very popular barbecue sauce that has been ten years in the making and according to Chef Terrell is close to perfection. This bbq sauce starts with a dry rub that Chef […]
I Need A Sauce for Stuffed Pork Tenderloin Danielle wrote and said, “I make this great stuffed pork tenderloin and I am looking for a sauce to go with it. It is stuffed with, spinach, pine nuts, goat cheese, garlic and sun-dried tomatoes.” When I asked Chef Terrell about a sauce, he immediately wanted to […]
I'm a work-at-home dad who enjoys cooking, learning everything I can about the culinary world and sharing it with you. To learn more about me... Read More
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