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Do you think you need a pasta sauce recipe to make a great pasta dinner tonight? I promise you that if you learn three of the most commonly used (and so called) culinary mother sauces, you will be creating all kinds of dishes with a never-ending variety of options. You might even find a new favorite pasta sauce recipe to claim as your "signature." Even if you just want to get some great new ideas for everyday dinners, these three sauces provide endless opportunity.
Become a Master of the Marinara Sauce Recipe
A marinara sauce recipe starts (as all sauces start) from one of the five "Mother Sauces" of French culinary - in this case, tomato sauce. Tomato sauce is tomato conasse - a fancy way of saying coarsely chopped, de-skinned and de-seeded tomatoes - combined with a "base" (meat, vegetables, fish). So, let's start with tomato concasse. The best way to remove skin from tomatoes is through blanching.< BR>
Here is the simple process for blanching a tomato:
Using fresh tomatoes, mark an "x" on one end and core the other end.
The tomatoes go into a pot of boiling water - not for them to cook, but for the skin to cook and peel off. You will see this start to happen at the "x" mark.
When the skin peels off that "x" mark, this is your indicator that the tomato is done cooking. This will vary by tomato due to size and ripeness.
Remove the tomatoes from the boiling water and "shock" them in an ice water bath to stop the cooking.
At this point, it should be very easy to peel away the skin and remove the seeds. If it's not, the tomatoes have not boiled enough.
Coarsely chop and you've got tomato concasse.
The second step of this process to making a marinara sauce recipe uses the saute method:
Heat a small saute pan on the stove to hot.
Add a small amount of olive oil and coat pan.
Combine your tomato concasse with some vegetable broth and reduce until almost all of the liquid has been absorbed.
Add some canned tomato paste to thicken and other seasonings of your choice, such as basil and oregano.
Heat your marinara sauce recipe through and serve over your favorite pasta.
By following this procedure, you can easily have a homemade pasta dinner in under an hour - any night of the week!
Make any White Sauce Recipe with One Procedure
When you think of a white sauce recipe, most often what you are imagining has its roots in the French mother sauce, bechamel. Bechamel forms the foundation for every white sauce recipe - including the favorite fetuccine Alfredo or even the classic macaroni and cheese. The key to making this velvety white sauce smooth is knowing how much milk to add. This is something that is best determined with your eyes - not a recipe!
You start by melting butter on the stove and then removing it from the heat. As you add some flour - a little at a time - you will be watching for the mixture to thicken up to the consistency of wall paper paste. When it does, you've got roux and it is time to return to the heat. Your goal here is to cook the proteins out of the flour. You will know this has happened when the majority of the roux has turned from yellow to white. During the process, you will smell a toasty smell as the proteins cook out. Now you can start adding milk. This is the most important step in making this sauce so take your time here. You will continue to add milk - a little at a time - until the sauce stops thickening. So here's the process:
Add some milk and stir.
Stop stirring and observe.
If sauce starts thickening back up over the heat, add more milk.
Continue steps 1-3 until the sauce doesn't thicken back up (in step 3).
I like a garlic flavor to my white sauce recipe so here's a trick for adding garlic, but not adding the lumps of chopped garlic. I simmer whole garlic cloves in the sauce for a bit and then remove them before serving. This will infuse a nice garlic flavor into my white sauce recipe. Finally, if you are making an Alfredo (or macaroni and cheese), this is where you would add your favorite cheese(s), stirring over heat as they melt.
A Buttery Garlic Sauce Recipe in Less then 30 Minutes
This sauce is quick but it can be a bit trickier than the others. But feat not! I've got you covered with the tricks of this technique. Again, we start with one of the French culinary mother sauces - this time: beurre blanc, a saute of shallot and any liquid and mounted with cold butter. Since we will be making a garlic sauce recipe, we will also add garlic - at the same time as the shallot.
The trick to this sauce is to always keep the butter yellow, meaning the butter has not separated - which is what you DON'T want. To keep the butter yellow, we must control the heat. The best way to do that is to move slowly. To melt the butter, without burning it, put the cold butter in a COLD pan and place it over heat on the stove, melting a little bit of butter. Remove the pan from the heat and swirl it around to melt more butter. Return the pan to the heat for a couple of seconds to get the butter hot again. Remove from the heat and swirl around to melt more butter. Repeat until all the butter is melted. Add shallot and garlic and saute. Controlling the heat and not separating the butter is the most important secret for success when making this garlic sauce recipe. Keep the butter yellow - I can't stress that enough! Once the shallots and garlic become translucent in color, add a cold liquid (white wine, for example) and then cold butter, cut in consistent squares. If the pan starts to get too hot, you will observe white specs floating to the top of the butter. If this happens, remove the pan from heat and add more cold butter to cool the sauce quickly. Tip: You can always heat the sauce back up again when you cool it, but you can't fix it once it has actually "broken". When you are satisfied with the consistency and flavor of the garlic sauce recipe you've created, add salt and white pepper to taste and serve on your favorite pasta.
Using these basic cooking methods, it is easy to create any pasta sauce recipe. I'll bet you're already thinking about some cool variations using your favorite ingredients. Since experimenting, making mistakes and making new discoveries are all part of cooking and your personal culinary journey - just think what a delicious road you have ahead of you!
