How to Make the 5 French Mother Sauces

In this video, I will walk you through how to make each of thee Five French Mother Sauces or Grand Sauces used in Classical French Cuisine. These sauces are very important to aspiring chefs, as it is one of the first topics discussed when attending Culinary School. The techniques used when making these sauces translate to every other type of cuisine and all other types of sauces. I go through the classical preparations, modern style sauces and practical uses for the home cook when making these sauces. The 5 Sauces are Bechamel, Veloute, Hollandaise, Tomato, and Sauce Espagnole.

#french #frenchmothersauces #frenchfood #cookingtips #cookingtutorial #frenchcuisine #culinaryskills #howtocook #cookingtricks #bechamel #tomatosauce #hollandaise #espagnole #veloute

Steak with Marchand De Vin Sauce Video:

Bechamel Sauce Ingredients:
1/2 oz Butter
1/2 oz Flour
8 oz Milk
Small Piece of Onion
1 Bay Leaf
1 Clove
Dash of Nutmeg
Salt to Taste

Veloute Sauce Ingredients:
1/2 oz Butter
1/2 oz Flour
8 oz White Stock
2 oz Mirepoix (2 Parts Onion, 1 Part Carrot, 1 Part Celery)
2-3 Thyme Sprigs
2-3 Parsley Stems
1 Bay Leaf
Salt to Taste

Hollandaise Sauce Ingredients:
1 oz White Wine
1 oz White Wine Vinegar
3-4 Cracked Peppercorns
1 Diced Shallot
1 oz Water
2 Egg Yolks
4-6 oz Butter or Clarified Butter heated to 145 F

Tomato Sauce Ingredients:
2-3 oz Medium Diced Onions
2-3 Minced Garlic Cloves
1 Tablespoon Tomato Paste
1 Can Tomato Puree or Diced Tomatoes
Salt to Taste

Espagnole Sauce Ingredients:
1/2 oz Butter
2 oz Mirepoix(2 Parts Onion, 1 Part Celery, 1 Part Carrot)
1 Tablespoon Tomato Paste
8 oz Brown Stock
1-2 oz Brown Roux
2-3 Thyme Sprigs
2-3 Parsley Stems
1 Bay Leaf
Salt to Taste

Music in the Video from Youtube Studio Audio LIbrary:
Artist: Track Tribe
Title: Lawrence

So today we’re going to be going over the classic French mother sauces of which there are five bamal Volute tomato Holland days and SAU espanol and these are my exams for my first semester of culinary school and these sauces are on every single one of these things so these are pretty important on your journey to becoming a chef and we’re going to go over the components of each one of these how to prepare each one how modern versions differ from classic versions and the practicality for homecooks today so we’ve got quite a bit going on this video so what do you say we get to it okay getting started at their very base level mother sauces are a liquid plus a thickening agent and the most common thickening agent used is Rue which is equal parts by weight fat and flour and there are two ways to incorporate this with the liquid and I will be demonstrating both of these within this video other common thickening agents are corn starch egg yolks and just reducing the sauce down to thicken it up so let’s jump right into it with best sauce which is the easiest of the five mother sauces it is milk plus white Rue as the thickener it’s named after Louis de baml who is the steward to King Louis the 14th so let’s go ahead and jump into the kitchen and make this thing okay to make this sauce start with one tablespoon of butter and once it melts add 1/2 oce of allpurpose flour and we’re going to briefly cook this mixture only for about a minute you just want to lightly toast it here you don’t want to develop any color and once you’ve reached that point you can start working in one cup of milk and you want to do this gradually for forming a paste initially adding it little by little whisking constantly to work out and prevent any lumps from forming and once you have all the milk Incorporated add a pinch of salt along with a small piece of onion one bay leaf one clove and a pinch of nutmeg these are optional but they are common flavoring compon is used when making white sauces and once you have everything added to the pot the sauce has to be brought to a boil for the Rue to fully thicken the sauce and make sure to stir the sauce frequently to prevent the sauce from scorching on the bottom after reaching a boil simmer the sauce for 10 to 15 minutes to cook off any raw flour taste and it should be thick enough to coat the back of a spoon like you see here well there you have it strain it out and you have a classic bamal sauce and a couple of examples of smaller sauces that come from this would be Sue be sauce which is this plus diced onions and also Mor sauce which is a term that’s kind of thrown around to describe any cheese sauce but traditionally it’s made with guier and parmesan cheese now as far as modern versions of this sauce goes you do still encounter this in professional kitchens but a lot of chefs also like to just reduce down cream and use that for their white sauce base now the most common way that home cooks are going to encounter this sauce is when they’re looking for macaroni and cheese recipes online as most of these recipes online do use bamal sauce as a base where you add cheese and pasta to it and you have your macaroni and cheese and I think another great use of bashal sauce is using it for the cheese sauce base for lasagna okay moving right into the next one we’ve got Volute sauce which is a white or a simple stock plus a white or blonde R to thicken it up and the term translates to velvety which refers to the color and consistency of the sauce and the name of the sauce is based on the stock you use so if you use fish stock it’s fish Volute or chicken Volute or ve Volute and so on so let’s jump back into the kitchen and let’s make this sauce okay to make vute sauce start by melting 1 tblspoon of butter into that we’re going to add 2 oz of miraa and we’re going to briefly cook this mixture to soften it up then we’re going to add 1/2 bounce of allpurpose flour to form a rue and for this sauce we’re going to cook this Rue for a few minutes until the pale color slightly darkens into a blond Rue then you can start working in one cup of stock I’m using chicken stock here and again it’s important to gradually work it in to prevent lumps from forming and for the flavoring components here add a few sprigs of thyme two to three parsley stems one bay leaf and of course a pinch of salt and just as with the bashal sauce bring the sauce to a full boil before reducing the Heat and simmering for 10 to 15 minutes to cook off any Raw flour taste and when you’re finished up check the consistency by making sure that it can coat the back of a spoon and it looks like we’re good to go well there you have it strain it out and you’ve got a classic glute sauce and traditionally this was used to make two smaller sauces one of them being sauce alaman which is this plus a liazon which is a mixture of heavy cream and egg yolks and the other one being sauce Supreme which is Volute sauce plus a little bit of cream lemon juice and sometimes mushrooms now in the modern kitchen you’re not likely to encounter sauce valute and you’re even less likely to come across sauce alamander Supreme sauce most chefs prefer reducing stocks into glazes these days to use for their sauce bases now this is being used in the modern kitchen in the production of soups especially cream soups but chefs aren’t usually just making Volute sauce and keeping it around for when they want to make soups rather it’s sort of built in as they go where you’d have your Rue your stock and your main ingredient and put that together and essentially you would have a vol B base soup now as far as the home cook is concerned the soup base is probably going to be the most practical use of this sauce but also if you want a quick cheap chicken gravy maybe Brown some of the vegetables first and add some black pepper and you’ll have a pretty good gravy okay next up we’ve got Holliday sauce which is butter plus egg yolks as the thickener and you can use either whole butter or clarified butter for this traditionally it’s clarified butter and they will have different results whole butter might be a little bit richer and have a better flavor but it also might be a little bit thinner due to the water content and if you’ve ever made mayonnaise you notice the ingredients are similar except for oil is used in place of butter for mayonnaise so this is basically hot mayonnaise so let’s go ahead and head on into the kitchen and let’s make this sauce all right for holiday sauce start with 2 tablespoons each of white wine and white wine vinegar and to that add three to four cracked peppercorns and one diced shallot and reduce this mixture down until it is nearly dry like you see here add 1 tblspoon of water back to the mixture before straining it into another pan and once it cools slightly add two egg yolks to the pan and this is the part of the recipe where you have to be careful with the heat you don’t want to scramble the eggs so it’s important to whisk constantly while going back and forth on and off the burner and what you’re looking for here is for the eggs to turn pale and roughly triple in volume like you see here and then we can start working in our melted butter and you want to start with just a few drops to slowly form the Emulsion the temperature of the butter here is also very important it should be around 145° F and if it’s any higher than that you’re risking scrambling the eggs and you’d ruin the batch and have to start the whole thing over and while incorporating the butter if the mixture is becoming too thick and difficult to whisk add a little bit of water to thin it back out this problem exists more if you’re using clarified butter than with whole butter which has water in it and for the flavoring components here add the juice from half a lemon a pinch of salt and a small dash of cayenne pepper and once you have all that stuff added give everything a good whisking and once again we’re going to check the consistency by seeing how well It Coats the back of a spoon and looking at this one this one’s good to go well there you have it that’s how you make sauce and you are going to run into this one quite a bit in modern kitchens most commonly with eggs benedict or food such as a steak served oscar style which is topped with crab meat asparagus and of course hollay sauce and of course the most common small sauce that’s derived from hollay sauce is Beres sauce which is hollay plus sherille and or Teragon okay moving on we’ve got tomato sauce and this is somewhat complicated because classic versions differ quite a bit from Modern versions The Classic version was tomato Plus stock and an optional Brown Rue and they sometimes even contain salt pork roasted pork bones or ham bones and modern versions really don’t contain any of that stuff and the one I’m going to make today doesn’t contain any of that either but when I was going to culinary school and the exam questions came up this was the answer that was expected but for now though let’s go into the kitchen and let’s make tomato sauce for the tomato sauce place a small sauce pot over a burner set between medium and high add a tablespoon of olive oil along with 2 to 3 ounces of a medium diced onion and a pinch of salt and you want to cook the onion until it Browns slightly around the edges it should look something like what you see here and then we’re going to add two to three garlic cloves that have been mined cook that for another minute or two and then we can work in roughly 1 tablespoon of tomato paste and I know I’ve mentioned this before but tomato paste out of a tube is the superior form of tomato paste cook that until a little bit of Browning develops at the bottom of the pan and add one can of tomato puree or diced tomatoes along with a pinch of salt and all that’s left to do for this one is to bring it up to a simmer for a few minutes and then you’re set this is the easiest one of the five mother sauces to make well there you have it that’s a pretty quick and easy tomato sauce base that can be taken in all sorts of directions and you can blend it together as much or as little as you would like now the practicality of having this sauce base around sort of depends on you if you do like to make a whole bunch of different types of tomato sauces maybe having this base stored in tupperware in your freezer isn’t a bad idea for example add some basil and oregano fresh or dried and you’ve got a pretty good pasta sauce or pizza sauce base there you could also add some fennel Thyme and fish stock and you have a base for seafood chapeno or you could add olives Capers and Anchovies and you got putina sauce and last but not least we have sauce espanol or brown sauce which is brown stock plus Brown r as the thickening agent and I’ve already taken the time to make the brown Rue which is a very timeconsuming process and you have to be very careful as you’re making it because you don’t want to Scorch it and you want to make sure you cook it evenly and it’s also extremely hot it’s not called caj and Napal for nothing so with that let’s go ahead and head on into the kitchen and let’s make this sauce for this one start with 1 tbsp of butter and once it melts add 2 oz of miraa but this time we’re going to cook it until it caramelizes a bit like you see here then work in one tspoon of tomato paste and same thing here allow the bottom of the pan to take on a little bit of color add 8 O of brown stock along with a few sprigs of thyme two to three parsley stems one bay leaf and a pinch of salt and while that heats up let’s go over Brown Roo there are a lot of YouTube channels out there that don’t prepare this correctly this here is not brown rooe and neither is this this is brown Rue making brown Rue is a timeconsuming process and not following through properly will result in a weak pale sauce all right to incorporate this sauce together work the ru in when the stock reaches a boil and the most important thing here is to make sure the r has cooled slightly to prevent it from splattering and causing Burns and once again make sure to keep the Whisk moving Ming while working in the r and bring the sauce to a boil and simmer it for 10 to 15 minutes like you did the others and check the consistency by seeing how well It Coats the back of a spoon well there you have it strain it out and you’ve got sauce espanol and this is most commonly used to make demig gloss which is a 50/50 mixture of this sauce and brown stock that is then reduced by half so you’re not very likely to come across traditional demig gloss in modern kitchens and the reason for that is pretty obvious and that’s the practicality of it it takes a long time to make brown stock and a long time to make espanol sauce and then to take that even further and combine the two and reduce that it’s just not very practical rather they’re using bases like this one from more than Gourmet this is just a small container usually they have big buckets like this but that’s usually what they’re using and if you wanted to make this at home I would suggest a much quicker version which is to omit the brown Rue and just use corn starch or Arrow root and that’s going to make what’s called fond leer or julier now this sauce does have a lot of practical uses as virtually every brown sauce is derived from this and the family tree of this sauce is the largest of all the mother sauces for example chur sauce is brown sauce plus mushroom shallots and white wine and Borday sauce contains shallots red wine and it’s garnished with DIC bone marrow and another one I featured on this channel is merchand dein sauce or wine merchant sauce which is brown sauce plus red wine I’ll link that video in the descript description if you want to go check it out but be aware that is one of my early videos so the editing sucks the audio sucks and the camera’s a little bit out of focus at the beginning of the video but the recipe is good so bear with me on that okay to summarize this whole thing up the five French mother sauces are bashal Volute holles tomato and sauce espanol and I will include the recipes for all five of these that I made today in the description of the video but for now that’s the end of the video so thanks for tuning in and we’ll see you next time