Making
Incredible Pan Sauces at Home
By The Reluctant Gourmet™
If you want to elevate
your cooking skills to a new level and add a whole lot more
to your gastronomy repertoire, learn how to make a simple pan
sauce. With this technique in your cooking bag of tricks, you
can turn a simple pan-fried steak into a mouth-watering meal,
a plain boneless chicken breast into a delicious feast, or
a modest pork chop into a scrumptious banquet. Ok, maybe I'm
stretching a bit but check this out.
Restaurants chefs use
this technique all the time. Basically they cook something
in a sauté pan over pretty high heat until it's done and leaves
a bunch of brown caramelize bits of "stuff" in the pan. You
look at this "stuff" in the pan and say to yourself, "Now how
am I going to clean this 'stuff' off the pan? What a mess!
I wish I had used a non stick pan."
The "stuff" has a name,
it's called "fond" and you want that "fond" stuck to your pan
because it is packed with incredible flavors. It's also easy
to remove by adding a little liquid to the pan and using a
wooden spoon to dissolve it. This is called deglazing and can
be done with wine, brandy, fortified wines, stock, cider, fruit
juices or most typically a combination of two. Just be careful
if you use wine to remove the pan from the heat so the alcohol
doesn't ignite and blow up in your face. I've spoken with chefs
who have seen this happen.
The next steps are to
continue to cook the liquid in the pan until it is reduced
by half and finish by adding several pats of butter to thicken
and enhance the flavor of the sauce. If you ever knew how much
butter professional chefs use in restaurants to "enhance" flavor,
you would be amazed. I sometimes think they make their dishes
too rich because I get that uncomfortable "too full" feeling
later on, but then again, it's so good while you're dining.
Now those are just the
basics. To create more complexity to the sauce you'll want
to add some aromatics like garlic or shallots for a subtle
but additional layer of flavor. Then you might want to add
some additional ingredients such as mushrooms, mustards, chutneys,
herbs and/or spices to give even more complexity and flavor.
For more information on
making classic and quick pan sauces at home including what
kind of pan to use, how much deglazing liquid to use and two
example recipes for the same sauce, one classic and the other
quick go to http://www.reluctantgourmet.com/pan_sauces.htm
Copyright © 2003
G. Stephen Jones, The Reluctant Gourmet™
G. Stephen Jones
created the Reluctant Gourmet back in 1997 as a hobby to
assist other novice cooks who may find the art of cooking
a little daunting. As an ex-Wall Street broker and stay-at-home
Dad, I try to explore cooking from a different perspective.
Visit http://www.reluctantgourmet.com for
more tips, techniques, and recipes.
