Escoffier sauce piquante: how making classic sauces can change the way you cook.

welcome back everyone stefan here in the french cooking academy now we're going to be talking today about recipe making because finding the right recipes you make sometime when you're at home and when you want to cook for your family or your friends it's not always easy especially if you've been cooking over and over the same recipes and i'm sure that some of you must have been already staring at their fridge thinking what i'm going to cook tonight you know that big question so today i thought i'll give you a bit of an alternative when you're stuck with recipes another thing you can do or you can think of is actually making a sauce instead when you may think what on earth should i do because in french cooking the sauce makes the dish and learning how to make sauces is a valuable skill it's going to bring you lots of new technical skills but also it's going to free you up from that recipe slavery that exists there but how exactly well let's find out so how exactly can a simple sauce change the way you approach your cooking well basically sauces made on their own gives you a great amount of flexibility in effect when you make a sauce as a standalone item you are deconstructing a recipe so if i was to make the sauce that we're going to be making today which is the sauce pecans from a scoff here a fiery sauce no there's no chili it's a very zingy vinegar type of sauce productions of white wine shallots vinegar you're gonna have some tomato brown stock into there fresh herbs gherkins gonna pack the punch is my type of sauce but you're gonna be able to make the sauce on its own ahead of time so all what you have to do is concentrate on the sauce you make the sauce it's ready it's done boom it's here after that sauce is the great thing about it it usually says it can be served with an array of things that sauce is be to be served sorry with pork that is usually grilled or roasted this is the advice for ms coffee but you could use white meat you could use veal you could use chicken or anything like that and you see this is the kind of flexibility i like if i was to make this as a pencils i'm gonna have to pan fry whatever meat i choose and it's gonna be one type of meat i can serve so if someone for instance doesn't like pork and so i'm gonna do it in a pan using pork chops if you don't like pork chop you're stuck if you don't like the way it's cooked in a pan a lot of people say oh you know it's terrible to pan fried meats i much prefer the barbecue again doing this with pencils you're stuck but when you make the sauce what i love about this the flexibility once the sauce is made if someone doesn't like the pan fried stuff let's use the barbecue don't like the barbecue let's use the offer no let's grate it you can do whatever you want and even better if someone doesn't like the sauce you can still say well you know you can have the piece of meat that we have whatever you're choosing that you like and get some of the garnish that i've made you can have some you know fried green beans potato gratin rice pastas whatever so again it is all about that super flexibility so i think in my view really there's a lot to go for in terms of source making and learning how to make sources as a standalone and this is what we're going to concentrate on that video with the source speaker on from here i hope you like something that is zingy because that's going to pack the polish all right let's start and make a source piquant this is the version from the french version and not to confuse with the version the creole version from louisiana which is called the source picant which is made with lots of tomato sauce cayenne pepper that sort of things this is different okay in terms of ingredients and everything you'll find everything listed in the video description so let's talk about sources and why do i like sources and you know how you can approach using what are the components you need etc etc so for me personally i like to approach sources the same way as i do with a recipe okay so if you know the technique you know what you need you know the elements like you see i've got all my mizon plus ready and then you assemble your sauce so when you make a sauce this is pretty much always the same you need two things the first thing you need a cooking stock i'll show you exactly what it is if you don't know and then with that stock you can flavor it like we're gonna see here to create what we call a source base that's the first element the second element you need is what's gonna define what your sauce is so in this case the sauce pecan when you've got your stock that's been modified with these flavors we're going to infuse that with a reduction of shallots white wine vinegar and then add some fresh herbs so we've got some chervil some parsley some tarragon and then gherkin that's it so you just need these two elements so i've talked about stock so what exactly is a cooking stock for the one that do not know let me show you so very briefly if you don't know what is a cooking stock it is simply a mix of bones and meat that has been colored in the oven you want to get this brownish color that you mix with aromatics carrots onions or you can have some garlic mushrooms whatever you like you pour water over and you leave this to cook for three to four hours that gives you this this is what you see here this is a veal kind of brown stock that's on its way i usually like to make my own stock now of course there's some time involved you need to know what you're doing etc etc and it's not to everybody's taste so what i want to show you in this video is what can you do if you don't have stock you can't be able to make it it's too complicated you don't have the ingredients etc what is the alternative well let me show you that as well so when you don't have stock when you can't make stock you can't be bothered etc what is the next best thing what this these are off the shelf liquid type with the same colors you've seen i just picked this in my supermarket i don't know what i don't know don't care about the bread when it's called rosas kudos to them they've put this in a supermarket and these are it's called bone broth but they're just cooking stocks already made you got a beef you got chicken you can have vegetables you can have all sorts of things and you don't have to butter it's half a liter about two cups and it's ready you can use this look at the color that you get that's nice and filtered you can use this to start with instead of the homemade stock and then we're going to improve this to give some extra flavor and you're going to get something that is really good already so when you can't make your stock always think next best thing you can find this online in shops it is pretty common they're called stock merchants and these are not the nasty powder thing you find in supermarkets don't mistake the two because they're totally different this is if you look at the ingredients here this is just water paste your feet bones and apple cider vinegar that's it there's no salt no nasty stuff no conservative it is straightforward and perfect to use so now let me show you how to make that salt base i'm going to use my own stock but if you don't go for these things that's the next best thing so as i said before when you make sauces it is good to approach them the same as a recipe this is what works the best for me so as you can see same as always i've got amisom plus even though it's a sauce i've got a mirepoix of carrots celery and onions a little bit of thyme some butter some tomato paste this is some pork belly and this is toasted flour and here i've got some wine the sauce base we have here for the saucepak on requires to have a thickened stock that is flavored with tomato okay and it used to be an espanol sauce and it is extremely simple to make once the mison plus is ready this is what's going to take you the much time the most time to make and after that it's a breeze so let me show you it goes let's get started so the first thing you're gonna do always is to burnify your stock okay so how does that go a little bit of oil if your meat is kind of fat here we're gonna use some pork belly for that particular sauce i'm gonna reduce my heat and we're gonna really color this until it's nice and brown to get some caramelized juices now i've got a good stock here so i don't need to add other trimmings to boost the taste of my stock as you can see it's nice and brown already but if you use one of this off the shelf stock what you can do is for instance take a short rib or any piece of meat like this you cut it in small pieces and you're gonna fry it in here and that is gonna really bring an authentic genuine taste of beef or whatever meat you need into your stock when you pour it in and it's gonna add some color as well okay so that's a little tip for you always add some extra meat like this in the bottom if you use one of these off the shelf because they're a bit thin if you have like me or an already good one you just go with the the base you just need for the sauce and that's it so after a few minutes as you can see my pork here got some nice color and what are we after here it's simply to have these caramelized juices and when you make this sauce base less is more you don't need to go over the top so this is cooked what i'm gonna do i'm gonna get rid of the meat and remove the excess of grease in my pan we're gonna continue so the excess of grease is this you see that residue here i'm going to get rid of this in the compost and then back on the stove perfect i've removed the excess of grease and now we're going to add some fat you know we're going to add some butter 20 grams and i'm reducing my heat because you wouldn't want to burn the butter and with that i'm gonna add my carrots my celery boom and a little bit of onions if you have like mushroom trimmings you can add them as well and make sure your heat is not high so you don't burn your butter and we're just gonna leave this to cook for one or two minutes all done it's been a few minutes and by now you must be thinking my god this is so much better but why is this well because we're making a roux you see so equal amounts of butter and flour this is toasted flour and i'm just gonna get everything in here still low heat don't make sure you don't burn anything and i'm gonna start to make my room base and this is gonna be the thickening agent for my sauce okay so because my flour is already toasted i don't need to wait and kind of cook the flour i'm going to go straight and put my tomato paste in okay so tomato paste it's up to you you can if you like it really really tomato you can add more this is like a tablespoon worth okay and i'm gonna mix this and cook that tomato paste a little bit just a minute or so to remove a bit of the acidity very good so you can see it's nice and dark and you can put like i said also more tomato paste and even like half a tomato fresh tomato if you really want to have this tomato flavoring and from here you're done or what we're going to do here is to add about two cups of stock so this is my good stock this is the one i've made this is the homemade thing and that is gonna be our base so i'm gonna bring this to the boil and then we're going to reduce it a little bit perfect and look at this this is a base of a look-alike of an espanola sauce it's boiling and the spine you always need to kind of cook it it's not really an espanol it's going to have to cook there on the stove for this you know a good 15 minutes to really get a nice kind of taste nicely reduced so because it's going to reduce and it's going to lose some volume what i'm doing in here i'm throwing 100ml of white wine dry white like this i've got plenty of time i don't have to worry it's going to reduce and back to the level that i had so same thing when it boils you reduce the heat and then you leave this we're going to do 20 minutes to do things properly but you can go as short as like 15 minutes and that's it so what do you think it is really not difficult to make the sauce base once you've got the meson plus look at that look at the sauce base look at the color and by the way talking about the color i've sneaked in about half a tablespoon of extra tomato paste because this one you see that that tinge you want you want to have that kind of nice reddish kind of tinge that's the perfect color so there we go i'm going to reduce this and then we'll continue with the sauce okay so as you can see here my source bay okay the look-alike of the espanol is reducing nicely and this is what you need for the second part of this first so remember sauce base this is the first lemon second one is all the flavoring and this is what you're gonna add to your stock to really transform this into an actual sauce sauce pecan from this coffee reduction of shallots white wine and vinegar yes 150 ml of each it looks huge then we're gonna have gherkins and fresh herbs added if you don't have fresh herbs what i do like here for tarragon i don't have it's out of season totally confine it anywhere i'm mixing the fresh with the dry never just dry because it's not gonna be it's gonna be nasty okay so i always do this if worst case scenario i don't have the fresh stuff or you can skip one herb all together or you can use the fresh stuff now this by the way it's terrible it is not parsley parsley is this you see how rough it is and this is terrible very very thin kind of hair i'm growing this in my garden very easy to grow same family as the parsley and it actually tastes like turkey's got an alici types of taste which is beautiful you'll find this all in the video description i've got the sauce japan let's go for the reduction and here we are again second part we're gonna make the red action i've got the favorite saucier pan this is the movie full copper m250 i love that pen for sauces and we're going to make a reduction what's the reduction heat off always we're going to take all of the shallots okay and we're going to add acidic produce i've got here the wine and vinegar so there's no heat under my pan just to show you and this is the escoffier recipe and look how much vinegar and wine we've got here anytime i'm doing something with coffee i'm like what this is never going to work but then you do it and at the end it's like oh it works so okay let's not question the man so when you got here boom high heat and all what we do here is to reduce the volume by half all right we're almost done i've used like a measuring cup and really just in a minute or so and look what's left it's not actually it's not much it's really not much so there we have it before we're doing the finishing touches this is the component of a sauce you've got the sauce base and here you've got the components are going to mate the sauce of course we're missing the herbs and everything like this so as coffee's recipe it says we've got 150 ml of that blend here and we need to add about 300 milliliters of that sauce and this is what i'm gonna do now perfect so let's do this i've turned my heat on low for now i've got my reduction of shadowed wines and vinegar and i'm just gonna pour that lovely sauce inside my sauce pickard has now reached the boil i can create a sauce let me go to almost all the elements in so i'm going to reduce the heat to low or very low and i'm going to cook this for 10 minutes as per escoffy recommendation and i'm going to taste the sauce so first off i can see that the sauce has got a great color a great consistency this is how liquid it is this slightly fixed totally liquid but definitely that spoon coating consistency is there you don't have to worry about this and well let's have a go so this is the version before the herbs are added it works that's a bloodiest cookie i'm waiting for the day to find a recipe from his coffee that does not work it has never happened every single time it just always works so what can we say yeah no it is perfectly balanced you get um the taste of wine the taste of vinegar there is a sharpness into it that is sits just at the right level that is absolutely not unbearable it is just surprising you know you're gonna it's enjoy you know it's something to enjoy because it's gonna really take you by surprise and that is even before we add the herbs in so as it stands i can see it only just getting better from there so for the herbs it is at the end with the heat off it is totally off the heat usually before we serve so i'm going to add with i'm going to start with the you know the fresh tarragon in here and i think i'm going to go easy it says one big tablespoon you know of gherkin but maybe like two teaspoons to start with and same from the herbs i don't want to make it too too herby i want to see first how it's going to go let me take a little whisk here perfect i've got my small whisk so we're just going to blend everything in i'm going to leave it a minute to infuse and then i'm going to try the sauce again okay let's uh let's do this final taste and look at this it looks already amazing that color and just the distribution of herbs and everything i think you can put a bit more gherkins but let me try okay that's it that's next level wow oh it's what you say it's like an explosion so yes before we just had the sharpness yes it's sharp wine thing whatever now with the herbs the gherkin boom it's like you know you crunch on a gherkin a bit acidic you get a texture then you meet the parsley a bit of trouble with that hint of anisy flavors and that's even without the meat it's a strike the only small tiny criticism i can make is that because we didn't cook the the sauce base too long with the flour there's a slight ever so slight taste of flour but that's really if you're someone that is used to you know to make and taste a lot of sauces but away from that spot on but now before we wrap up everything let me grill some meat and taste it with the meat and we'll wrap up the video perfect so i've rushed to grill pieces of pork there we're just gonna maybe pour that sauce over there just bit by bit so that you can see maybe not too much i think it's quite a strong saw so let's go let me tell you what it's uh how does it go now you do need immediately you see it's got that addictive thing so you do need like a lot of of sauce in there but look at the herbs i think that kind of sometimes that bit of the flatness of the pork it really elevates the whole thing and this these pieces of like roasted on the side they really really help so let's have a bit more just you have a bit of an idea this is full of gherkin fresh herbs on there and you put it in the sauce it's really not it's just sharp enough so it becomes a bit addictive it's like you eat it you know you take the meat in and when you finish it's like this lingering taste in you know in back of the palate and you're thinking oh let me have a bit more let me have it more it's that kind of sauce beautiful so that's it we've done the famous sauce picon from augustus coffee and as i was saying making a sauce it's a little bit like making a recipe except that now we're free to choose other things so i've made the sauce i've chose my pork my piece of pork and i could serve this with any garnish that i want so it is a bit an alternative if you're keen by the way on learning more about sources i know it's hard to find resources but this is why i've created a whole course dedicated to french sauce making okay there is more than 30 sauce mother sauce stock making everything you need to know so if you're keen on that please check it out you have a link in the video description but if not just use the comment section for questions follow me on instagram and share your pictures you can follow me on facebook become a patreon my patreon page you want to support the free videos on the youtube channel and of course the french culinary school online that we have if you want to join always welcome i'll see you all next week for another video take care bye [Music] [Music] do [Music] you

Channel: French Cooking Academy

Views: 102,367

Keywords: french cuisine, french food, french food recipes, french cooking video, the french cooking academy, sauces, escoffier, sauce piquante recipe, french sauce piquante, french version of sauce piquante, learn to make sauce, classic french sauces, change, the way you cook, escoffier piquante recipe, escoffier sauce piquante

Id: G-Al_qn7xZg

Length: 20min 54sec (1254 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 26 2021