Lesson #1 Sauces
Home Culinary School Chronicles
Welcome to the inaugural entry of my Home Culinary School series - the Escoffier way. Inspired by the diary format of Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones’s Diary, I'll be sharing the highs and lows of my culinary adventures - part diary, part recipe. Before reading, I suggest to pour yourself a glass of wine or stir up a dirty martini, get cozy on the sofa and read on!
Week #1
7.07am Monday morning.
Coffee units: 2 (cappuccino + espresso)
Negative thoughts: 24
Positive thoughts. Hard to tell!
It appears that the next time I uncork a bottle of red I should ensure my laptop and phone are safely stowed away. After indulging in a particularly delightful glass (or two) of Malbec, I found myself publicly declaring my intention to embark on my own home culinary school journey, guided by Escoffier’s Le Guide Culinaire. (Note here, my starry-eyed proclamation.)
So here I am, sitting in front of Escoffier's extensive text, showcasing more than 5,000 recipes. This tome features: sauces, meats, desserts, fascinating methodologies, and endless flavor combinations. What limitless possibilities! What an insurmountable challenge.
To add even more pressure, for some reason, I took this concept a step further and posted a TikTok video detailing my culinary ambitions. I mean, what better way to make a real commitment than announcing it on social media? To my surprise there were over 30 enthusiastic comments. Someone even drew parallels to the movie Julie and Julia - I adore that film. I don’t, however, adore this feeling of post-commitment dread. Yet, here I am, fully committed with no way out.
Upon reflection, I suspect the reason for sharing my ambitions was a desire for accountability. I know myself too well, or at least I'm learning my tendencies: I brim with creative ideas and grand projects, but, as with many creatively-inclined folk, it takes huge amounts of effort to select and commit to one project.
9.05am
You know, this might not be so bad. I've always wanted to attend culinary school. Having cooked from the age of five, I know my way around the kitchen, however, there comes a time in everyone's life when you become achingly aware of your own inadequacies.
And speaking of inadequacies, in a past life, not so long ago, when I was working as a creative in corporate America (not advisable), I had ‘a moment’ just as my manager was reaching the crescendo of a one hour lecture on how to be a big player. Souped up on too much cold brew he delivered a rapid fire outline of the ‘stages of stupidity’:
“First you are unconsciously ignorant, then you become consciously ignorant, then you are met with a decision: change and transition through ignorance or STAY STUPID.’’
The fact that he used this story to coax me into mastering the art of spreadsheets - that had no relevance to my job spec - we shall ignore, but he wasn’t wrong, staying stupid is most certainly not in the plans, so on we go!
Le Guide Culinaire
So here we are, Le Guide Culinaire will be my culinary bible for the foreseeable future.
First up, sauces. I like sauces, in fact I love sauces. I am, of course, familiar with the French mother sauces:
1. Béchamel
2. Velouté
3. Espagnole
4. Hollandaise
5. Tomat
I must have made béchamel sauce countless times for dishes like mac and cheese, fish pie and croque monsieur. You name it. But Escoffier’s version, ha, that’s another story. I’ve never made béchamel with veal. VEAL! And cooking it for two hours ‘in the oven’ - how does that work?
Before we even get to the béchamel sauce, Escoffier requires that the roux is made with clarified butter. What a pain, I don’t normally bother. But, it was my choice to do things properly. So, let’s begin with Lesson One… or perhaps I’ll start tomorrow.
6.38am Tuesday morning.
Coffee units: 0 (torture)
Negative thoughts: 43 and counting (could be worse)
Positive thoughts. 5 (v. good considering sleepless night)
Urgh. I was tossing and turning all night long having fevered dreams of drowning in a sea of clarified butter. My husband is under strict instructions to keep the espresso shots coming today.
What is wrong with me? I know how to make béchamel sauce.
It’s Escoffier, he’s whispering in my ear, demanding perfection, his way! You know what, if perfection is what chef wants, perfection is what chef will get.
This better be the best bloomin’ béchamel I’ve ever made.
Lesson number #1 - Béchamel sauce.
Escoffier’s Sauce Béchamel
This recipe uses one third of the ingredient quantities cited in Escoffier’s Sauce Béchamel recipe. After all, I’m cooking for a family of four adults, not a 40 cover restaurant!
White Roux
Ingredients
100g/3½-4 oz clarified butter
117g/4oz all-purpose/plain flour
Sauce Béchamel
(This recipe uses Imperial pint measurements.)
Ingredients
1700ml/3 pints whole milk,
100g/3½-4 oz veal, small cubes
½ small onion, finely sliced
1 small sprig of thyme
25g/1 oz butter *
small pinch of coarsely ground pepper (I used white)
small pinch of nutmeg
8g/¼ oz salt
(*Proportionately slightly more than Escoffier’s quantity as the equivalent 17g/½ oz butter wasn’t enough to ‘stew’ the veal and onions.)
White Roux
Method
To clarify the butter:
1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat.
2. Let it simmer until it separates into three layers: foam on top, clarified butter in the middle, and milk solids at the bottom.
3. Skim off the foam with a spoon.
4. Slowly pour the melted butter into a container. To ensure that the milk solids are removed you can pour the butter through a muslin-lined sieve.
To make the roux
Mix the butter and flour in a heavy bottomed pan and place over a low heat, stirring frequently until it takes on a straw color. The roux should be cooked for just a few minutes, ‘sufficient to eliminate the rawness of the flour’. Set aside to cool.
Storage
A roux can be kept for a reasonable amount of time. Typically, you can store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a week. If you want to extend its lifespan, consider freezing it. In the freezer, a roux can last for several months.
Sauce Béchamel
Method
Bring the milk to boiling point.
Tip
Decant the boiling milk into 1 or 2 jugs as this will make it easier to pour on to the roux.
2. Gradually mix the boiling milk into the roux until the sauce is smooth. Bring the sauce back to the boil.
I presume this is because the mixing process will have caused the temperature to drop slightly. It seems sensible to presume that even though the sauce is being returned to boiling point, this should happen reasonably slowly, to avoid the sauce burning at the bottom of the pan.
Tip
Use a whisk for mixing as this breaks up any small lumps of roux, but also use a wooden spoon, intermittently, to remove any clumps on the inside edge of the bottom of the pan.
3. Whilst the sauce is coming to the boil, add the veal and butter to a pan and ‘stew’ without browning, before adding the onions, seasoning and thyme.
4. Add this veal mix to the white sauce and whilst stirring frequently, simmer for 2 hours before straining. (I cooked my sauce for 40 mins - please check note below.)
Now, about those 2 hours. It is important to remember that Escoffier was primarily writing for kitchens catering for large numbers, hence the original recipe calls for 5 liters of milk. Nevertheless, Escoffier’s instruction to cook the sauce for 2 hours ‘in the oven’, stirring frequently, is confusing. Ranges of the 1900s included baking ovens as well as warming ovens, but it seems unlikely that the cook would stand for 2 hours opening and closing the oven door to stir the sauce, so perhaps ‘the oven’ refers to a Dutch oven on a hot plate? Even so, for 2 hours?
So, use your initiative. Keep the sauce on a low heat, maintaining a bare simmer, and see how you go. Only you will know the consistency you wish to obtain so stop just before that point, as the sauce will thicken further as it cools. I cooked my sauce for approx. 40 mins, at which point it had significantly thickened, clung to the back of a wooden spoon without too many drips, and yet still maintained a pouring consistency.
5. Once strained, coat the surface with butter to avoid a skin forming
Of course, some genius has since invented cling film, so use that instead if you prefer.
Shortened version
Interestingly, Escoffier states that: ‘It is possible to make the sauce more quickly’. Surprise, surprise! In this version the onion, seasonings and thyme are added to the milk, which is brought to the boil, removed from the heat and allowed to infuse for 10 mins. It is then strained directly on to the roux before mixing to combine. Finally, bring to the boil and simmer for 15-20 mins.
Apart from the ingredient quantities, that is exactly how my family has always made béchamel sauce – the (shortened) Escoffier way! Not, I might add, directly from Le Guide Culinaire, but rather as part of a recipe for lasagna that my mother has adapted over the years, but which originated from a Good Housekeeping Step-by-Step cookery book, Easy Italian Cookery (1982).
2.11pm Wednesday.
Coffee units: 2 (homemade chestnut latte & a cappuccino)
Negative thoughts: 0
Positive thoughts. 100
Hurrah - it worked. Let me tell you, the veal is an ingenious addition to béchamel sauce. It imparts a wonderfully subtle but meaty element that works in perfect harmony with the thyme, onions and butter. Escoffier’s method may be fiddly, but it’s certainly worth the effort. Tomorrow I’m going to develop a recipe to use up the sauce.
8.45pm Thursday.
Coffee units: 3
Negative thoughts: 1
Positive thoughts. 150
I’ve done it. Not only have I aced my first culinary school lesson, even if I do say so myself, but this morning, feeling enthusiastic and creative, I developed the very best lasagna recipe to ever exist. Well, perhaps that is a slight exaggeration, but I promise you, this lasagna is so intensely moreish that my family have demanded that I make it again as soon as possible.
The reason it is so good is because not only did I use Escoiffer’s recipe for the béchamel sauce, but I also substituted the usual beef mince for chorizo and sausage meat. In addition, inspired by Clare de Boer I ensured that every portion had a crispy topping.
I haven’t got the time to write up the recipe right now, but will endeavor to do so in the next week or so. What I can say is that I will be sure to include a shortened version of the béchamel sauce recipe for those tight on time. Which, let’s be fair, is most of us!
Until next time!
Sarah x
Love this series!