
- From
The Cook's Bible:
How to Thicken a Sauce
- by Christopher Kimball
Step 1: Forget most of
what you know about classic French cooking
If you have ever taken a course
in classic French cooking, forget almost everything they told
you. The French, with great intestinal fortitude, thickened sauces
with butter, flour, egg yolks, and cream, to name a few of the
culprits. They whisk together butter and flour (a roux) and then
add in milk (a béchamel) or stock (a velouté),
which thickens almost immediately. They use a paste, or little
balls, of equal parts of flour and butter (beurre manié).
These were added to sauces or stews as a thickener near the end
of cooking. They also used egg yolks whisked into a sauce and
reduced cream (cream that has been boiled down to thicken it).
Butter can also be used as a
thickener. When it is whisked into a hot liquid, the milk solids
and proteins in butter form an emulsion that suspends the particles
of fat in the liquid, creating a thicker, shinier sauce. The
problem with this last method, however, is that you need lots
of butter to make this work (1/2 cup of butter is needed per
1 cup of liquid--1/2 cup of butter is an entire stick!). Nobody
in their right mind is going to thicken with butter these days.
Other thickeners include blood, foie gras (goose liver), yogurt,
fresh cheese, and bread. Prior to the 16th century, coarse bread
and ground almonds were the thickeners of choice.
So much for haute cuisine. The
quickest and easiest thickener for a home cook is cornstarch.
Whisk it with equal parts of water and then add it to a stock
or a gravy and you have an instant sauce. This is how most people
thicken gravy for Thanksgiving. But there are three good alternatives.
Since most thickeners are starch, the two most obvious thickeners
are potatoes and rice. Potatoes are particularly well suited
to soups and stews (cook extra potatoes with the dish and then
purée some of the liquid with the excess potatoes). I
often keep extra cooked rice in the refrigerator as a thickener
as well. I use it with stock and puréed vegetables for
a quick and light sauce. I also use stale white bread, which
is the traditional thickener for a rouille, a sauce made with
roasted red peppers, lots of garlic, and hot peppers.
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