French Culinary Elegance with Chef Amy

Synopsis:
Indulge your taste buds in a journey of French culinary mastery with Chef Amy on “Culinary Elegance.” In this enchanting cooking show, Chef Amy unveils the art of French cooking, focusing on classic techniques that bring the flavors of France into your kitchen.

In this episode, Chef Amy takes you through the intricate world of French cuisine, emphasizing the creation of the fundamental “mother sauces.” Witness the culinary magic unfold as Chef Amy skillfully demonstrates the preparation of a velvety béchamel sauce, the cornerstone of countless French delicacies.

The spotlight of the episode is on crafting the perfect mac and cheese, elevated to gourmet heights with the rich and savory béchamel sauce. Chef Amy’s expertise transforms this classic comfort dish into a masterpiece, demonstrating how French techniques can elevate even the most familiar recipes.

Viewers will be captivated by Chef Amy’s culinary prowess as she shares tips on achieving the ideal consistency, flavor balance, and presentation. “Culinary Elegance with Chef Amy” is not just a cooking show; it’s a masterclass in French gastronomy, offering a unique opportunity to bring the sophistication of French cuisine to your own table.

Prepare to be inspired as Chef Amy invites you to embrace the elegance of French cooking, making each episode a delightful exploration of flavors, techniques, and the sheer joy of creating extraordinary dishes in the comfort of your home.

Hi all welcome to aala we’re going to be doing classical French techniques for every day my name is Chef Amy I’m a chef with over 25 years experience and currently own a catering company in Colorado by the same name of Aala uh so we’re going to do another sauce bamel and with that we can then make a bunch of little baby sauces hence the name mother sauce so we’re going to be doing a mac and cheese with a cheddar sauce we’re going to be doing a cream of

Broccoli soup using that bamel and then for dessert today we’re going to do a custard because custard why not all right let’s get started on our mother sauce all right so we’re going to be making a bamel again this is a mother sauce so from this you can make a bunch

Of derivative sauces for bamel it’s all about the ratio so if you want to make a gallon of bamel you’re going to need one gallon or one pound of Rue Rue is a butter and flour mixture this is what’s going to thicken in our bamel uh so if

We take that ratio we can either up it or we can lower it and so today we’re going to lower it a little bit we’re going to make a quart of bashel so I would need a/4 pound of root to do that I’m going to use equal parts of butter

And flour so I will use 2 oz of butter which is a half stick uh and approximately 2 oz of flour I will take my butter we’re going to throw it in my pan over medium low heat cuz all I want to do with melt it I don’t want to cook it

If I cook it too much it’ll Brown my butter and then we have a completely different sauce so we’re just going to melt it and once it’s melted we’re going to put in enough flour so again approximately 2 oz for my 2 oz of butter

But it’s just going to be enough to soak up all the butter and basically make like a wet sand mixture again nice and gentle right nearly there and then I’m just going to put in enough flour like I said to make wet sand stir in a little I can

Always add more if I need it stir up a little and we are almost perfect so like a wet sand so if you’re walking on the beach you leave that footprint and then it kind of goes back together it’s what we look at that Here all right so I am just going to let this cook for a touch uh I don’t actually want to cook it cook it I don’t need to change color because again that would be a different thing uh once you cook your Ro and you make it darker uh

You have different stages of root our first one is just a blonde root so it is um barely cooking it we’re just kind of toasting the flour a little bit uh and bringing out the flavors of the butter and the flour it’s going to smell kind of like cookies

Baking so our Ro’s been cooking a little bit like I said it’s been smell kind of like cookies baking so you can just take a little sniff it’s buttery it’s yummy um so I’ve got my milk here what I’m going to do is I’m add Just a Touch so

What’s going to happen is this is this R is immediately going to thicken because it’s nice and warm I’m adding the milk uh so I’m going to throw it in there stir it so that I get it all mixed in otherwise we’ll have clumps and we don’t

Want clumps so we’re going to mix that little bit of milk in it’s and like I said instantly going to start to thicken so stir it till it’s all smooth again and then we can add a little bit more milk and we’re going to keep doing

That until all the milk goes in but again you want to do it a little bit at a time so that you don’t end up with l lumps otherwise you have lumpy gravy or lumpy sauce or whatever it is you’re making so little bit at a time keep stirring it until it’s

Smooth it’ll take a second the bigger your batch the longer it’ll take you can also preheat your milk if you like that will make this process go a little faster and you can also use a whisk which I think I might grab give me just a sec now I have my

Whisk and again stir it say nice and smooth before you add the next batch try not to pling it everywhere you want it in the pot little bit More and then it’ll get easier to add as it thins out so we can add that all and now we’re just going to let it simmer until the whole mixture thickens and so we’re going to have a nice creamy sauce it’s actually going to be kind of

Like the consistency of cream or reduced cream but without all the fat all right so we’re just going to let that simmer for Just a Touch we’ll be right back to it all right before I let this thicken all the way we’re going to go ahead and add

Our aromatics AKA our seasonings so classic bashel it’s going to get a little bit of bay leaf and a little pinch of nutmeg and this is just going to be our only flavor base other than maybe a little salt at the finish and so again this is our base

Sauce and then we’re going to use this to turn into other things today we’re going to be turning it into a macaroni and cheese some nice aged Irish cheddar and then we’re also going to turn the other half of it into a cream of broccoli

Soup all right so this is going to take about 15 20 minutes to thicken up you’re just going to Stir It occasionally uh and how you’ll know it’s done first of all it’s going to taste delicious it’s going to take like tastes like creamy sauce also you’ll be able to take a

Wooden spoon and you’ll Stir It uh and then when you can actually swipe your finger across the spoon and it stays and it doesn’t run down you’ll know it’s thick enough and now we’re back back so we’re going to test for nape so dip the spoon

In we’re going to run our finger across and we want it to not run back we are ready okay all right so first up we are going to make a mac and cheese but we’re going to take half of it so the other half will be for our cream of broccoli soup

We’re going to put that half over here okay so we’ve got half reserved our half is in here we’re going to add some aged Irish cheddar stir it in all right my sauce is cooled a little bit so we are going to put it back on

The stove and just enough to melt the cheese so nice and Low okay all right so we’ve got our cheese all melted in nice and smooth and so next we’re going to add a tiny bit of goat cheese I like this because it gives a little lift um the Irish cheddar is nice and Rich um and the goat cheese

Gives it just nice little bit of tininess rounds out our flavors okay stir that in and we will give it a taste all right Spoon yummy all right so we will add some pasta cooked alente al dente meaning to the tooth so it should have just a little bit of bite to it meaning your teeth should sink through it shouldn’t be like crunchy like raw pasta But definitely chewy okay stir in our pasta and again if it gets too chilly just put it back on the stove and heat it up a little bit my pasta was kind of cool because um after we cook it I like to shock it so you drain it and then

Just pour uh cold water on it until it cools the pasta down stops the cooking process okay we’re all mixed in serve it up And we have mac and cheese all right so now we’re going to do our broccoli cheddar we’re going to move over the stove all right here we go let’s do some medium Heat yeah buddy I can light a stove all right little bit of olive oil just enough to coat the bottom of the pan pan and then we’re going to add some minced Onions and a little bit of garlic we’re just to sweat that so sweating mean we’re going to heat it up until it lets off a little moisture and softens and once our onions and garlic have sweated down we’ll be back we’re going to add some broth uh we’re going

To bring that up to a boil then we’ll add our broccoli we’re going to cook that until it softens we’re going to add a little hint of time some salt and pepper for seasoning and then we are going to put our bmel back in and puree it up and have cream of

Broccoli all right so we have sweated got a little moisture peeking out there we’re ready to go we’re going to add some broth and said bring that up to a boil once that is boiling we’re going to go ahead and add our broccoli cook that until it’s softened and then we’re going

To season and and Pureet all right so we’re up to a boil let’s go ahead and add some broccoli don’t be shy use the stems they’re perfect for soup lots of flavor all right okay and so we’re going to bring this all to a boil turn it down let it simmer until that broccoli softens just a

Bit all right so simmer that means just gently doesn’t have to be a roiling boil all right back in a Sec okay so while it’s simmering let’s go ahead and add pinch thyme do the fresh time dry it if you have it or don’t have the bresh all right little bit of salt now be careful um if your chicken broth was salty to begin with always taste before you

Season uh go a little easier you know and if it was um some good quality stock or bone broth and not too salty then make it taste so we’ll add a little pepper all right simmer away until that broccoli is soft and then we come back and pure

It okay so looks like we’re good our broccoli is softened um it’s nice and bright green you want to stop it cooking before it gets too dark that’s usually pretty pretty good indicator if you’ve gone too far all right so now we are going to puree wrap by blender Blender in place go ahead and add your soup Base okay now when you’re pouring any hot liquid always be careful the steam likes to build up and maybe shoot the lid off um so when you do put a lid on to puree you always want to make the pop the top and then good idea to cover it

With a towel okay so that you can peek the hot air out but if if anything explodes it hits the tow not you okay so and then the other key is to pulse it that means to on off on off real quick um so that this team also doesn’t have

Time to build up and like I said shoot out it helps lessen that okay so we’re going to go little bit we’re going to P also always be careful when you do go to look don’t put your head directly over in case something does decide to explode all right we’re smooth but we’re not too smooth I want some broccoli texture to it we’re going to add our Bamel all the on stuff fush pop that top here we go all right right taste It cream or broccoli Soup all right let me grab a bowl We’ll pour it we’ll taste it be right Back and then little garnish maybe some of the cheddar cheese from the mac and cheese and voila creamy broccoli soup Garn with cheddar all right so next we’re going to do our dessert we’re going to move on to a custard base another classic uh base recipe that can

Be turned in many things it’s the basis for french vanilla ice cream uh creme brulee poto creme which is actually what we’re going to make today that’s like a chocolate custard okay so now we’re going to make a custard base custard is one of those awesome uh it’s not technically a mother

Sauce but it is a mother sauce all right so regular custard base made out of egg yolks separated a little bit of sugar we’re going to whip that together milk little bit of vanilla that’s your basic custard base and again that will get you like a creme brulee a sauce to put over

Your bread pudding um and today’s pudding okay all right so chocolate pudding okay and today’s chocolate pudding all right so and we’ll start by taking our egg yolks and our sugar mix them together whisk them a little bit get them nice and smooth okay and then we’re going to let that

Rest there for just a second while we go and get our milk ready so what we’re going to do is put our milk in the pan we’re going to put it on some high heat we’re going to bring it up to a boil all right that’s all I want to do it’s going

To bring It come up to a boil it’s going to foam a little bit you want to catch it before it does that otherwise it spills all over your stove but either way okay so onto the stove okay so we’re going to bring it to

A boil and when we do and it does that little foam over thing that’s called scalding it we’re not actually burning the milk we’re just bringing it up to temperature okay so we’re going to bring it to scald okay so we have scalded look foamy

To take it off the heat boom we’re done me turn this off okay so now we have to temper this what does that mean um so we want to take our cold egg yolks and mix them with hot milk now these cook at a really low temperature so I don’t want to just

Add all of my hot milk or add it to the hot milk um it might cause it to curdle and break you know like egg curdle um when you cook them so we don’t want to do that we’re going to gently mix the two it’s called temperary so we’re going

To put a little bit of the milk in here about a third stirring while we do it so again that when the hot part doesn’t sit on the cold part and so yeah want to make sure that our hot and cold mixed gently then we can add a little bit more stir stir

Stir and then we can actually take this mixture and pour it back in here and there we have tempered okay my stuff out of there okay all right this is going to go back on the stove medium low heat and we’re going to Stir It consistently what we’re

Going to do now is thicken it just like we did our bashel we’re going to look for that nape so we’re going to put on the stove we’re going to do medium to low heat we’re going to stir consistently so that it doesn’t cook on the bottom cuz they’re eggs uh and we’re

Going to wait for it to thicken and we’re going to get that nape like we did before with the bashel where we run our finger across the spoon if it doesn’t slide we’re good all right we’re back so we’re going to test nape looks like we’re a lovely

Nice consistency so we do the finger test no run we’re beautiful all right let’s come over here we are going to mix in just a touch of vanilla if you have vanilla paste that’s awesome if you have vanilla extract that works if you have vanilla bean even Better okay all right all right stir it in then we’re going to add our chocolate stir it in you can also take the cheater away and use a food processor just pour everything in all that chocolate in there that even melted already okay and we go and remember hot liquids be careful

So you want to pulse pulse pul oops extra my I did not pick the appropriate size container taste chocolatey okay so we will take our mixture and pour it into a Rabin cupcake dispenser just a dish whatever works for You and then chill and you have chocolate pudding all right thanks so much for joining me on aala I’m Chef Amy join us next week where we’ll do mother sauce another mother sauce either tomato bashel vute who knows stay Tuned N