Chefs/restaurants who still use MOTHER SAUCES

Hello Acerezo,

It would help if you could just ask your questions straight out.

Could you be a little more specific about what you want?  And, which "mother sauces" in particular? 

You don't have to look far to find cooks using bechamel, hollandaise, and some version -- not Escoffier's -- of tomate.  On the other hand, most modern chefs view espagnole's role as a precursor to an old fashioned version of demi-glace; and instead make a more contemporary demi without it.  There's a surprising number of veloutes running around in regional and comfort foods -- for instance chicken ala king -- but the people who make those don't necessarily identify the sauces as veloutes.  "It's just roux, stock and milk, sugar."

BDL

Just about every French restaurant uses mother sauces.

Just about every sauce is a variation of a mother sauce - it's hard not to use them.  Maybe you are asking about the way they are employed, such as keeping a bain marie with 3 or 6 of the mother sauces in for easy menu diversification like in a chalk board menu bistro?  Like that a cook can quickly make 100's of sauces and soups.

For the most part, sauces use up scraps that are full of flavor and neutrients but that people don't want to eat - like bird heads and veggie peels.  Knowing the mother sauces helps because a cook can look at what the sauce is going out with, what scraps they have made the base with, and apply that to a mother sauce technique.

Coup-de-Feu,

You wrote, 

Six of "the mother sauces" in a bain marie?  I don't get this at all.  Maybe we understand the term "mother sauce" differently.  What do you mean?

Let's skip the bird's heads (please) for the time being and move along to,

I thought I was lost before.  What do you mean?  What's a "mother sauce technique?"

BDL

BDL

I understand mother sauce to mean what one uses to make all sauces with.  A mother sauce is what holds whatever one wants to put in it.  The term mother sauce is subject to a lot of interpretation; some chefs leave out gastrics, coulis, glace de viande, sabayons and other egg emulsions such as mayo and anglaise... 

By bain marie I mean a roasting plaque filled with water and however many "bain marie" pots in it.  Each pot has a mother sauce kept warm in it to be used as the cook sees fit.  Example: bechamel in the bain marie used to make either sauce mornay for mac and cheese, or country gravy for the biscuits - but the list of uses for bechamel goes on and on for each sauce made with milk and thickener as a "base", or "mother".

I got to admit I made up "mother sauce technique" up. but how else to explain?  A sauce cook can work for days to make something not knowing what it is going to go out with, sweet or savory and all of scraps.  A sauce can also be a soup, dessert sauce, or ice cream...  give me a minute and I may be able to explain what I mean

http://lynnescountrykitchen.net/sauc/mothersauces.html

DEFINING THE FIVE MOTHER SAUCES

Béchamel, the classic white sauce, was named after its inventor, Louis XIV's steward Louis de Béchamel. The king of all sauces, it is often referred to as a cream sauce because of its appearance and is probably used most frequently in all types of dishes. Made by stirring milk into a butter-flour roux, the thickness of the sauce depends on the proportion of flour and butter to milk. The proportions for a thin sauce would be 1 tablespoon each of butter and flour per 1 cup of milk; a medium sauce would use 2 tablespoons each of butter and flour; a thick sauce, 3 tablespoons each.

Velouté is a stock-based white sauce. It can be made from chicken, veal or fish stock. Enrichments such as egg yolks or cream are sometimes also added.

Espagnole, or brown sauce, is traditionally made of a rich meat stock, a mirepoix of browned vegetables (most often a mixture of diced onion, carrots and celery), a nicely browned roux, herbs and sometimes tomato paste.

Hollandaise and Mayonnaise are two sauces that are made with an emulsion of egg yolks and fat. Hollandaise is made with butter, egg yolks and lemon juice, usually in a double boiler to prevent overheating, and served warm. It is generally used to embellish vegetables, fish and egg dishes, such as the classic Eggs Benedict. Mayonnaise is a thick, creamy dressing that's an emulsion of vegetable oil, egg yolks, lemon juice or vinegar and seasonings. It is widely used as a spread, a dressing and as a sauce. It's also used as the base for such mixtures as Tartar Sauce, Thousand Island Dressing, Aïoli, and Remoulade.

Vinagrette is a sauce made of a simple blend of oil, vinegar, salt and pepper (usually 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar). More elaborate variations can include any combination of spices, herbs, shallots, onions, mustard, etc. It is generally used to dress salad greens and other cold vegetable, meat or fish dishes.

Hey BDL. Who's on first, whats on second, he's on third . What was purpose of original question????  Vinagrette , Veloute  a mother sauce????

 Am I in the correct venue??

Just about every sauce is a variation of a mother sauce - it's hard not to use them

While that's true if you confine yourself to classic French cooking, it's by no means universally correct. There are, literally, thousands of sauces that have no connection with the mother sauces of French cooking.

Even modern sauce making, with its emphasis on lightness, is far removed from the constrictions of the classic mothers.

Oh whatever!  Water is a mother sauce!

There are seven mother sauces in "classic" French cuisine.  Careme had four, one of which didn't overlap with Escoffier's five.  At some point after Escoffier touched Adam's finger and gave humanity life, everyone slapped themselves on the forehead and said, "merde."  Merde is not a mother sauce, but mayonnaise is.

Careme:

Allemande

Bechamel

Espagnole

Veloute

Escoffier:

Bechamel

Espagnole

Hollandaise

Tomate

Veloute

Modern, Synthesized:

Allemande:

It's pretty much an egg stiffened veloute.  No one uses it.  It started petering out of French cuisine by the mid 19th C around the beginning of the culinary revolution and trend towards simplicity which carried Escoffier to sainthood.  It enjoyed a brief resurgence right after WWI, with a bunch of dishes (especially fish) which everyone called Parisienne then, but nobody does anymore.  Now Parisienne seems to mean anything but.

Bechamel:

Darn near everyone uses bechamel.  The issue is, uses it for what.  Bechamel, Espagnole, and veloute, as roux based sauces have pretty much disappeared from the high end haute French, some other high-end European, and New International Cuisines, but they're still going very strong in a lot of regional and bourgeois cuisines.  

Espagnole:

It's been rendered pretty much redundant, especially as a path to demi.  During the nouvelle and California revolutions we discovered that if you left stock on the stove it thickened up by itself, and that was pretty much it.  I like Espagnole as a mother, but haven't been a professional cook for multiple decades; so I don't count.  A few people on CT use it -- one of whom employs it not as a mother but as gravy.  Titomike is using my version to make demi, and is very happy with it.

Hollandaise:

Mmmm.  Hollandaise.

Mayonnaise:

Where would the Japanese be without it.

Tomate:

The mother tomato sauce, "tomate," wasn't something you tossed on spaghetti, or used right out of the pot.  Rather it was used to supply structure without starch as well as some color and sweetness -- the sweetness coming after it married the other ingredients and cooked down.  Everyone still uses a tomato "sauce" for the same purpose, but no one uses Escoffier's version or anything like it because canned tomato products are so good there's just no need.  Modernly, we use tomato paste and go from there.  

Veloute:

It's pretty much gone from modern high end French cuisine, New International Cuisine, and so on; but is very much alive in ordinary cooking worldwide.  Think of it as gravy and you get the idea. 

Vinaigrette*: 

NOT a mother sauce, for two reasons.  Vinaigrettes should be made a minute, because they eventually separate, and the eventuality doesn't take very long.  Daughter vinaigrettes are still vinaigrettes, there isn't enough distinction or progression in the daughters.  Mostly though the daughter is created at the same time as the mother, which drives a stake into the heart of the whole mother/daugher relationship as I understand it. 

Distinguish all that from, say, taking jarred mayonnaise, thinning it with diluted vinegar, and sweetening it with sugar in order to make "Alabama White Barbecue Sauce." 

But Bluesed got it from Lynne's who got it from someone else -- which means at least there's some following for the idea that it's a grande.  Plus, I'm not researching this, just pulling it out of my bony head; and I certainly don't know everything.   There's something on which we can all agree.

Hope this illuminated for someone,

BDL

PS.  It seems our OP, who pleaded help ASAP, has forgotten us.  Que lastima.  

PPS.  I published a slightly edited version of this, called Snow White and the Seven* Mother Sauces, to my blog.

I think our OP has written her test by now.......

So BDL, you're telling me that ketchup isn't a mother sauce?

Ducking and running......

I still use Mother Sauces.  Bechemel, Brown, Hollandaise and Tomato.

Helllo Scotttoooo I still use all my mother sauces and then some. You know how it is here the the Alps!!! lololol

Unterageri????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kanton Schwyz?

Vierwaldstattersee?

Ed:  We will probably never know.

Foodpump:  Ketchup is tomate sweetend with sugar, acidified with vinegar, and seasoned with smoked cloves.  I understand Canadians like it quite a bit when they can't get curds and gravy. 

Scott and Chris:  If you use a lot of roux based sauces it says the Nouvelle/California revolution pretty much missed your establishments.  That's not a comment on quality or a criticism of any sort, just an observation.  One man's stodgy and old fashioned is another man's retro.

I'm wondering if the "brown sauce" is based on a roux pincage, itself created around browned or sweated mirepoix.  In other words, is it an Espagnole? 

Why no veloutes?  Surely, if you're making the other stuff you're making veloutes. 

What goes into your tomate? Or, as the case mahy be, tomates?  Escoffier and the other alte kakers (Japanese for "reverend masters") used to bend themselves around pretzels trying to work with dodgy tomatoes.

BDL

Wow no one has answered the original question  "does anyone know restaurants or chefs that use the mother sauces?"

I do not know where you live Acerezo but the Grand Sauces are a part of every kitchen....maybe just a derivative of them

Demi Glace, Veloute. Bechamel, Tomato ,Hollaindaise .....   these are starting points

Here is something  to consider  to start off a good Glace de Viande...........  Espagnole

Well ketchup is a derivative of tomato sauce.....

and hey BDL we are the ones to invent Poutine....we never replace ketchup for that ....so taboo

Gypsy,

Historically, demi-glace is a daughter not a mother.  Espagnole is the mother. 

Lots of restaurants and professional chefs still use many of the mother sauces.  No question about it.  A blessing on their heads.

At the very high end, though, especially with French and New International Cuisines, you just don't see many flour thickened sauces.  This isn't snobbery on my part, it's just how it is. If you search "Espagnole" in Chef Talk, you'll see that I stand up for it as a really good way to make demi-glace. I was trained to use the old mothers and happen to like fooling around with them, but food fashion is not up to me.  

If you're making tomate (aka tomato sauce) the Escoffier way, you're one of very few people to still do it.  Not all tomato sauces are created equal, and only a very specific type can be termed a "mother" within the context of French cuisine.    Canned tomato paste does a better job of doing the things Escoffier wanted that particular mother to do -- structure, color, sweetness.  At the other end of the structure spectrum, good, canned, crushed tomatoes do a better job as well.

When a Canadian -- like Foodpump -- makes a ketchup joke, poutine is the proper response.  In fact, poutine is the proper response to most Canadian jokes.

BDL

BDL....

      Espagnole is the beginnings of the Mother or Grand Sauce Demi Glace . Equal parts fond de veau brun and espagnole....

I am  Canadian ....eh.

Catsup or ketchup is no way a derivative of tomato sauce in the true meaning of tomato sauce, its like saying A1 is brown sauce or demi. Things do not change that much. 

Besides which, ketchup predates the mother sauces by at least a century.

Let me see.  If you take one sauce and add something to it -- oh, say, more stock -- and reduce the whole thing to make another sauce...  Which is the mother? And, which is the daughter? 

Also, thank you for teaching me how to make demi-glace.  I'd always wondered.      

BDL

"Give a man a fish, some butter, a little flour, a few capers, some parsley, a lemon, perhaps a few brussel sprouts, a bit of bacon, salt, pepper, garlic and a potato, and he'll have a nice lunch.  But give a man a gun and a map with the banks marked on it..."

But give a man a gun and a map with the banks marked on it..."

.......and he'll spend the rest of his life in a federal prison where he'll get fed three good meals a day.

Brilliant scheme to feed the hungry, BDL, brilliant!

BDL, will you please be my new grandpa?  Of course, you're only actually old enough to be a young father (to me), but you have so much wisdom and information.  I doubt that we view food the exact same way, as you appear to be classic French and higher-end food, but I could learn a ton from you, without you even scratching the surface of your own knowledge.  I wish I had not only your information, but your experience behind the information (which is what makes the information so useful). 

Actually, and off topic here, I'd love to see you and my late grandfather duke it out on knife sharpening.  He owned a restaurant many years ago and I remember his coarse stone looking more like a dish -- it wasn't cupped, it was dished.  The (I'm guessing it started life as a) boning knife was almost down to a shiv by the time the restaurant closed.  He was cantankerous and always right in his own mind (sadly, a trait I picked up from him).  Just the idea of him sharpening his shiv and you going all "chasing the burr" on him would raise both of your blood pressures, but surely be fun to watch.

I think a "mother sauce technique" would be creating ad hoc gravy/sauces from pan drippings instead of having the espagnole (and I may have even chosen the wrong mother sauce) sitting in a container as a "starter". 

(Since I tend to come across sometimes boorish and rude, I want you to understand that my comments above were meant truly in respect and honor, not in an unfriendly manner.)

Gobblygook,

Thanks for the compliments.  Sounds like your grampa, you and I have a lot in common.  Not just the boneheadedness.

BDL  

Ed,

A-1 is raisins.  Mother sauces have no raisins. 

Soylent Green is people. You may have them with ketchup or curds and gravy.  Either way, it is the same price. 

BDL

Wellll.. if we really want to split hairs, the "original" Catsup/Ketchup was an Indonasian condiment and had no tomatoes in it.  But it did have cloves--lots of 'em. 

Ther's good ketchup, and there's real crap.  The crap just has tomato paste, corn syrup and clove powder--the stuff you see in the shelves below the brand name stuff.

Kinda weird about the Indonasians, they grow most of the world's cloves, and they are also the largest importer of them.  They like to smoke cloves in cigarettes, and cloves don't grow in predicatable cycles--hence the importing.

In defense of ketchup as a Mom, it is used for cocktail sauce, finds it's way in bbq sauces, and 1000 islands, and many Asian dishes use it as wells--usually a 100 oz tin right there beside the hoisin, soya, and sesame oil,

Mother sauces, eh?  Knew an Englishman who called hisself a cook, took pride in making "bastard" sauces:  Stuff straight out of the faucett or of the can and some oil roux.  "No need to get fancy, right?"  He would say.....

Quote:

Originally Posted by boar_d_laze 

Let me see.  If you take one sauce and add something to it -- oh, say, more stock -- and reduce the whole thing to make another sauce...  Which is the mother? And, which is the daughter? 

 

Also, thank you for teaching me how to make demi-glace.  I'd always wondered.      

 

BDL

 

"Give a man a fish, some butter, a little flour, a few capers, some parsley, a lemon, perhaps a few brussel sprouts, a bit of bacon, salt, pepper, garlic and a potato, and he'll have a nice lunch.  But give a man a gun and a map with the banks marked on it..."

Well good point BDL.....I guess vinegar is the "Mother Sauce|" of Vinaigrette and butter is the "Mother Sauce" of Hollaindaise....Milk must be the"Mother Sauce "of Bechamel

I get it now thanks

Well on the note of Demi ...let me know if ya need anymore tips ...

well ....can we let the ketchup just be ......it's ketchup......for goodness sakes.....made in different countries with different food to add it to in mind....

I still have not seen # thread girl ....so we can just keep rehashing the almighty sauces.......cool ......this should be never ending ...love it!

A long time ago when I worked in the old NY hotels. We would take a 20 gallon stockpot and cook it down to obtain maybe a pint if this strong tasting rubber. It was called Glace d'viand. To me , this was the original as we call it today Beef Soup Base.We would take a tiny piece of it off and add it to the sauces and soups .we were making. Today many places believe it or not still maintain a stock pot, but very few reduce it to this point. The soup base they sell today is quite different using hydro vege protein, msg, and salt as the primary ingredients.