NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota
State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665
May 14, 1998
Saddam Hussein must like to cook. In fact, I bet he was flipping through one of his favorite cookbooks looking at recipes for sauces the night before he made his infamous utterance about the mother of all wars.
But there is no mother of all sauces. There are actually five leading warm sauces, which some chefs call mother sauces: bechamel (cream or white sauce), brown sauce, veloute or fricassee sauce, hollandaise sauce and tomato sauce. All other warm sauces are progeny.
If you've ever eaten chicken a la king, you've had a version of bechamel sauce. The onion sauce on your Salisbury steak? That's right, the offspring of brown sauce. Ever had a New England boiled dinner served with a horseradish sauce? Then you've had something born of a veloute sauce. Of the five mother sauces, three contain stock—either beef, chicken, veal, ham, fish or brown stock. The exceptions are the creamy bechamel and, of course, hollandaise sauce, which is an emulsion of egg yolks and melted butter.
What's the difference between a stock and a broth? Stocks are stronger flavored due to a longer cooking time which extracts more from the meat scraps, bones and vegetables in the cooking liquid. To make most stocks, pour cold water over your ingredients, and after you've cooked the bejabbers out of all the ingredients, strain the liquid and discard everything else. A brown stock is a little different; you first brown the ingredients before adding the liquid. Use scraps and bones from both beef and veal, if possible, when you make brown stock.
For a broth, you're typically using cuts of meat destined for eating—chicken breasts for example—so you pour hot water over the meat and poach it only long enough to ensure doneness. Throw in some onions and celery to help round out the broth's flavor.
Most of you probably buy canned or powdered broth or bouillon cubes, but believe me, homemade stock can be worth the effort. If you're planning a meal where the sauce plays a key role, you may want to try making your own stock. Recipes for stocks abound on the Internet and in many cookbooks.
The recipe that follows gives you an opportunity to attempt a stock and a tomato sauce, if you're so inclined. But I used store-bought broth and tomato sauce when I recently made oven-barbecued country-style pork ribs—and I still went back for seconds—and thirds. For outdoor cooking, swab this barbecue sauce (or finishing sauce, as aficionados call it) on your meat about 20 minutes before it comes off the barbecuer. Or serve it warm on the side. Remember, perfectly barbecued meat is not fall-off-the bone tender. You should still be able to slice it.
Zesty Barbecue Sauce
Yield: about 14 servings, ½ cup each
Ingredients:
1 cup each chopped onions, celery and carrots
8 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups beef, chicken or vegtable stock
1/3 cup whiskey (optional)
1 tablespoon dry mustard
1 29-ounce can tomato sauce
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/3 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup mild-flavored molasses
1 teaspoon cayenne
1 tablespoon paprika
2 bay leaves
Procedure:
Saute onions, celery, carrots and garlic for a few minutes in
olive oil. Mix in flour and continue cooking, stirring
frequently, for 5 minutes. Add broth and whiskey and cook until
mixture thickens, stirring constantly. Add remaining ingredients
and simmer for 1 to 1½ hours. Remove bay leaves and discard;
puree remaining ingredients in blender or run sauce through a
food mill. Serve warm as an accompaniment to grilled food.
What's Your Take on This, Julie?
If you're feeling pressed for time but not in the mood for take-out, fast food or microwave dinners, why not fire up the barbecue grill? If you prepare this zesty sauce the night before, cooking is a breeze. Since it makes a large batch, you may want to freeze some for future barbecues. In many households, grilling is a "manly" activity—much to the female counterpart's content.
To save time, dovetail your work. While the grill is heating, prepare the rest of your meal. Enlist everyone's help, and choose quick cooking meats such as chicken breasts, fish fillets or thin beef steaks. Add some grilled vegetables to the menu for a nutritious summertime side dish. Clean and cut the vegetables the night before, or try the pre-packaged vegetables available in many supermarkets.
If you prefer dense cuts of meat such as ribs or bone-in chicken breasts, try precooking them in the microwave. Remember, though, that for food safety sake, microwave-thawed or precooked meats should go straight from the microwave to the grill. Partial cooking warms the meat and gives bacteria the opportunity to grow and is not a recommended practice. Use a meat thermometer to measure doneness, and to prevent cross contamination, always bring a clean plate and utensils to collect your cuisine from the grill.
To save time and savor the flavor of your efforts, cook a little extra for tomorrow's lunch or for a main-dish chicken salad. Transfer these "planned overs" directly from the grill to shallow pans and place in the refrigerator.
A serving of this sauce (1/14 of the recipe or about 1/2 cup) contains 100 calories and 2.4 grams of fat. A serving also provides about 75 percent of the daily recommendation for vitamin A (as beta carotene) from the carrots and 20 percent of the recommendation for vitamin C from the tomato sauce. Your choice of meat will greatly influence the total nutrition of your menu, so try poultry or leaner cuts of meat. Grilled vegetables are a tasty way to work toward the recommended daily five servings of fruits and vegetables—or 5 a day.
Regardless of the type of sauce, meat or vegetables or who becomes "mother of the grill," cooking together provides families an opportunity to interact and enjoy the great outdoors. They might be having so much fun they won't be able to tell that you used canned broth instead of homemade.
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Sources: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136 & Julie Garden-Robinson (701) 231-7187
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