Pan Sauces

[jsmeeker]

OK.. School me on pan sauces. I know some of the basics.

Cook meat in pan (not non-stick) remove. Deglaze the tasty fond wtih something. Scrape up the bits. Add some stock? Then reduce. season. finish with butter?? Maybe before the deglaze step, throw in some shallots or something and cook a bit..

So, that's one way at a high level. But I need some "help". I usually always do it the same way with essentially the same ingredients. Shallots, white whine, chicken stock, salt/pepper, butter. That works nicely. But I'm getting bored.

The one type of stock I tend to have on hand is chicken. Usually store bought, but sometimes home made (I have some home made currently). I'm also trying to keep white wine on hand. ANd shallots, too. The types of meat I usually cook are chicken (various parts like thighs or boneless/skinless breasts), indvidiual cuts of pork (various "chops"), beef (ribeye or strip steaks, usually), and sometimes fish.

So, with that in mind as a starting point, what can I do with those meats and those basics if I get a few more things? Help me mix it up so I'm not always eating the exact same chicken thighs all the time.

Edited April 18, 2007 by jsmeeker (log)

[rooftop1000]

First try it without the non stick pan so you get good crusty bits on the bottom.

other liquids....

dry vermouth

brandy

cream

orange or apple juice

balsamic vin

apple cider vin

mix ins...

the shallots

onion

mushrooms

cracked pepper

fruit

such as

pansear pork chops...remove

add onions and apples

deglaze with wine, juice, or apple cider vin

pork chops back in to finish

tracey

[jsmeeker]

First try it without the non stick pan so you get good crusty bits on the bottom.

other liquids....

dry vermouth

brandy

cream

orange or apple juice

balsamic vin

apple cider vin

mix ins...

the shallots

onion

mushrooms

cracked pepper

fruit

such as

pansear pork chops...remove

add onions and apples

deglaze with wine, juice, or apple cider vin

pork chops back in to finish

tracey

←

oops... That was a typo on my part. I meant to say NOT non-stick. I know THAT much. (I'll go fix it)

But thanks for the other ideas!!

[DerekW]

Hmmm. No doubt you'll get more learned opinion than mine , and soon

How about;

Deglaze with your most acidic liquid first and reduce to intensify flavour.

Two liquid additions is not too many, balsamic & red wine, &c.

Keep those ice-cubes of frozen demi handy.

A bag of frozen berry fruit in the kitchen freezer is your friend [no need to defrost].

Don't be afraid to put the sauce through a strainer.

Deglazing for fish and chicken, the brightness of fresh lime juice can be welcome.

Have fun.

[Marlene]

A little sherry added to a cream pan sauce brightens it quite nicely.

[daves]

I've been following a 4 step process:

1. Acid to deglaze. Here I've used: wine, vinegar (esp champagne), brandy, tomato water, etc.

2. Flavorings: stock, mustards, fruit, shallots, etc.

3. Seasoning: salt and pepper

4. Some type of fat: usually butter or cream.

About a year ago I read an interview with some chef, and he said the two top differences, in his humble opinion, between most home-cooked food and restaurant food was proper seasoning and acidity. So I started upping the acidity content of my pan sauces, and they've been good.

Tonight I made pan-seared and oven finished pork chops for dinner. Seared 2 in a stainless frypan on top of the stove, then finished to 150 in the oven. Tented the chops while I deglazed with calvadoes. Added chix stock and thinly sliced apples. Reduced. Seasoned and finished with 1t butter. We thought it was pretty good, and that included my 3yo daughter who was dipping her pork in the sauce and eating it up

Edited April 19, 2007 by daves (log)

[Fat Guy]

Peter Hertzmann has an excellent piece on pan sauces on his website. To break it down along French classical lines, there are generally four elements of sauces au moment (that is to say, pan sauces):

First, the garniture de base. This would be where jsmeeker's shallots come in. Once you've got the meat out of the pan and have drained off the excess fat, you may want to add something like shallots, or there are many other options: garlic, pancetta, tarragon to name just a few. There may be several items added at this stage, for example in a Bordelaise pan sauce you'd add shallots, thyme and bay leaf.

Second, the deglacage, which is jsmeeker's white whine. But it could be cognac, or vinegar, or even water if the other ingredients you're using warrant less rather than more flavor at this stage. For Bordelaise, it would be red wine.

Third, the fond, which could be stock or a variant (demi-glace, glace). For Bordelaise it would be veal demi-glace. After some reduction, this would be the point at which you might strain the sauce (for example if you used bay leaf).

Finally, the liaison or finition. This could be a thickener/binder, like a roux, or it could be something like capers or mustard. Or it could be nothing, like in Bordelaise.

There's some crossover among categories, for example an herb can be a garniture de base or a finition. But the classical categories help one to think about and experiment with pan sauces. Of course there are many pan sauces that are formally described in classical French cuisine -- you don't need to reinvent the wheel. Start with Hetzmann. Also check out the pan sauces section of Jack Lang's eGCI course. And you can move on to plenty of books.

[jmolinari]

That hertzmann page is AWESOME. Thanks for posting it

[paulraphael]

Steven's summary is excellent.

Some things to consider ...

Thickness: traditionally sauces were made quite thick (enough to generously coat the back of a spoon). This was accomplished primarily by using a roux-thickened demiglace. Nouvelle sauces tended to be thinner, creamier. They tended to be thickened by some combination of gelatin (from glace de viande), reduced cream, and butter swirled in at the end. Many contemporary sauces are left unbound and are more brothlike.

It's up to you, but you should plan ahead based on what you're trying to achieve. Usually the thinner the sauce, the more intensely it should be flavored. This is because you'll be getting less with each bite.

For informal pan sauces, I often make them with stock and maybe wine, with a lot of aromatics to get an intense flavor. I then adjust the thickness at the end to give it just a bit more body than a broth. A simple way is to strain it and then swirl in whole butter off the heat. A bit of arrowroot starch can also work well if you don't want the richness of butter.

texture: you can make a great rustic sauce by not straining. if you do this, you can make it nicer by chopping your shallot or other aromatics more finely and evenly. or you can strain, preferably through a fine strainer or chinois, for a velvety texture.

flavor: in a simple pan-deglazed sauce made with stock, the ideal is often to simulate the flavor and mouthfeel of a natural jus. This is hard, because stock is never as good as jus, even after deglazing the pan. reduction intensifies flavors, but destroys many fresh and subtle flavors. An excellent solution is multiple deglazes (usually two is enough).

here's one way to do it: deglaze the pan with healthy amount of stock, and reduce it down to nothing. allow it to brown on the botttom of the pan. As it's starting to brown, add your aromatics. then deglaze as you would normally. if using wine or spirits, reduce by half, or however much you normally would. If not, go straight to adding more stock. In any event, use less stock, and do not not reduce it. just simmer long enough to extract flavors from any long-simmering herbs you're using (thyme, bay leaf, etc.).

For roasts, if you roast on a bed of aromatic veggies (onions, etc.), leave the veggies in the pan with the drippings and the fat, and reduce. the liquid drippings will brown on the bottom, leaving the fat floating. You can then simply pour the fat off (a strainer helps you hang onto the veggies). the veggies can stay in the pan through the second reduction, too. this greatly enhances the flavor. if you're going to strain, do so before adding the liason.

The idea is you get intensity, and added roasted flavors from the first deglaze. after the second deglaze, the remaining stock is not reduced, so you get to keep its fresh stock flavors. This is similar to the classic method of making demiglace, where unreduced stock is added periodically to the reduction. I learned about multiple brownings/deglazings from James Peterson.

[Fat Guy]

Many contemporary sauces are left unbound and are more brothlike.

←

If you gravitate towards more broth-like pan sauces, as I do, your choice of service vessel becomes especially important. You can't effectively serve a broth-like pan sauce on a plate. You need to use a bowl.

So, for those who plan to make sauces like this, do yourself a favor and invest in a set of rimmed bowls.

Also, when setting the table for a course that is to be served with a broth-like sauce, be sure to provide a spoon in addition to the knife and fork.

Conceptually, when you plate something up with this sort of sauce, you are serving it in the sauce. By contrast, with a thicker sauce, you either serve the item on the sauce (the more contemporary way to do it) or you serve the sauce over the item (old school).

Using a broth-like sauce also affects the way you treat sides/garnishes. For example, if you plate veal cutlets in bowls with a broth-like sauce, you can't really put mashed potatoes in the bowls. You'll need a second serving vessel for the potatoes, or whatever else you're serving. This is a nice opportunity to use vessels like covered ramekins, or mini Le Creuset pots. Although, some garnishes can go in the broth, like mushrooms.

[paulraphael]

I just took a look at the article on Herzmann's site. It's a nice article, but confusing in that he lumps together liaisons and 'finition.' Sometimes they're the same thing (like with beurre mainié), but often they're unrelated.

The liaison is the binding agent that thickens the sauce. It can take many forms. it can be integral with another ingredient (flour in demiglace, gelatin in glace, vegetable starches in purées). In other cases they're separate and added somewhere in the middle (reduced cream). and in some cases they're added separately, typically at the end (butter in various forms, refined starches).

Finishes include butter, but also seasonings unrelated to the liaison ... like parsley or other fines herbes, acids, salt, pepper, etc.

[jsmeeker]

Peter Hertzmann has an excellent piece on pan sauces on his website. To break it down along French classical lines, there are generally four elements of sauces au moment (that is to say, pan sauces):

First, the garniture de base. This would be where jsmeeker's shallots come in. Once you've got the meat out of the pan and have drained off the excess fat, you may want to add something like shallots, or there are many other options: garlic, pancetta, tarragon to name just a few. There may be several items added at this stage, for example in a Bordelaise pan sauce you'd add shallots, thyme and bay leaf.

Second, the deglacage, which is jsmeeker's white whine. But it could be cognac, or vinegar, or even water if the other ingredients you're using warrant less rather than more flavor at this stage.  For Bordelaise, it would be red wine.

Third, the fond, which could be stock or a variant (demi-glace, glace). For Bordelaise it would be veal demi-glace. After some reduction, this would be the point at which you might strain the sauce (for example if you used bay leaf).

Finally, the liaison or finition. This could be a thickener/binder, like a roux, or it could be something like capers or mustard. Or it could be nothing, like in Bordelaise.

There's some crossover among categories, for example an herb can be a garniture de base or a finition. But the classical categories help one to think about and experiment with pan sauces. Of course there are many pan sauces that are formally described in classical French cuisine -- you don't need to reinvent the wheel. Start with Hetzmann. Also check out the pan sauces section of Jack Lang's eGCI course. And you can move on to plenty of books.

←

Thanks for this link! I'll read over it this weekend.

[Qwerty]

Last step should almost always be mounting with cold butter, swirling it off the heat and emulsifying it. Adds a nice glossy sheen and rich mouthfeel.

There really is no right or wrong answer, you seem to have the concept. I would just use your imagination to see what comes up...maybe a few misses but I bet you have more success.

[Jon Savage]

I've been paying more attention to sauces of late. Tonight's was slightly inspired by this thread.

Sauteed 2 pork chops in my trusty cast iron pan.

While they were resting put 2 slices homemade bacon (minced), 1/2 clove minced garlic and a few minced shallots in the pan. Added maybe 1 tsp flour, made a sorta roux toasted till nutty. Deglazed w/ 1/2 c sherry (flambe, reduce). Added about 1/2 c beef stock, reduced by about 2/3. Took off heat added a glob of Dijon (maybe 1 tablespoon). Was going to add butter but the mustard thickened up the sauce perfectly. Rustic porky goodness. Served over the pork chops with rice it was a very tasty dinner.

[Fat Guy]

I wanted to add that today's cooks have a lot of ingredient options that weren't necessarily available to the French chefs of a century ago. In particular, there are many Asian ingredients, such as various soy sauces, fish sauces, oyster sauce, curry pastes, sesame oils, rice vinegar, Shaoxing cooking wine, coconut milk and chili sauces. Used judiciously, these are terrific ingredients in pan sauces. Tonight for late-afternoon supper I made chicken with mushrooms and peas. The pan sauce was capers (packed in Sherry vinegar), chicken stock, a little soy sauce, a little sesame oil and a dash of oregano. You just wouldn't have seen that sauce back in the day. There are also a number of thickeners available now that didn't exist way back.

[project]

Supposedly one of the nicest keys to a great pan sauce is about 2 T of red current jelly.

Okay, via Google found a photograph of red currents -- they look a lot like sour cherries.

So, what source of red current jelly is good?

How can we use it to help make pan sauces?

For more, supposedly other good keys to a great pan sauce are Marsala or Madeira. So, any more details on how to proceed?

Recently I experimented making 'hamburger au poivre' with 1/4 C of crushed black peppercorns and 1 pound of hamburger and deglazed with dry red wine -- Cabernet-Merlot. I kept increasing the quantity of wine, finely up to 1 C, and reduced it. Taste from the reduced wine was not so interesting.

With the pepper, wine, some brown stock, and some butter, once actually DID get a very good sauce.

Garlic? Shallots?

But, I'm missing the principles of how to select ingredients and proportions, how much to reduce, etc. There HAVE to be some good, basic ideas in common in here somewhere, but so far I don't understand them.

Chives? We could use chives to help a pan sauce? Fresh chives, just cut? GREAT! HOW?

Now I understand: Chives do well the SECOND year. That is, from all the water and fertilizer the first year the result is a pot of chive 'bulbs' that REALLY take off early in spring the NEXT year. So, already, 70 miles north of Wall Street, I've got a pot of really healthy chives just outside the kitchen door. Now, how to use these chives to make pan sauces?

[kangarool]

An excellent topic Mr Meeker. I was thinking of posting my question elsewhere, but it's still appropriate here: upthread (and in many many places) the use of "sherry" is mentioned. My question is, what IS sherry these days?

That's to say, as recently as a decade or two ago, "sherry" may well have been those bottles of salt water on the shelves of Safeway, also labelled (mockingly, I suspect) as "cooking wine". Er... ok.

But then, if not that, what are we talking about? Is a nice summery amontillado appropriate? I know very little about 'real' sherries, but I know you don't buy it at Safeway, and I also know there's a beautiful flavour to some that would likely work well in a pan sauce, but have always wondered about this point when it comes to cooking.

My time and opportunity for experiments at home are very limited these days, so would appreciate opinions... I actually am not fond of white wine to deglaze these days, or to be more accurate and as suggested in the original, am bored with the same result.

thanks everyone/kanga

[Shalmanese]

Something which hasn't been mentioned is that another great base for pan sauces is the marinade you used to marinate any sort of meat. You have to be careful though as most marinades are too salty to use straight as a pan sauce so you have to dilute it with a more neutral base.

I made oven baked chicken last night and made what wasn't strictly a pan sauce but had the same idea. In a pan, I very lightly sauteed some garlic and then added in the buttermilk marinade with paprika, garlic salt, pepper and tabasco. I then added some cornstarch to stabilise it and whisked in yogurt until I got the flavour level to what I wanted it and finally mounted some butter to finish. Marinades are great because they have a lot of the meat protein suspended in it so you get added rich, meaty flavour. The only thing is the texture will end up a bit gritty as the protein will coagulate out which is not a big deal for rustic home cooking but you can always pass it through a sieve if you want a smooth, restaurant quality sauce.

If you have a very thin marinade, then another thing you can do is to add the marinade to a hot pan a tablespoon at a time, continually deglazing the pan and then letting it evaporate and caramelise. This helps brown the ingredients in the marinade, especially the sugars and leads to a richer, darker sauce.

[dario]

OK, pan sauce is a seasoning made after the meat has been cooked and removed using whatever is left in the pan.

But what if you prepare your meat by adding it to a soffritto, then baste it with wine and adding other ingredients (anchovies, pancetta, etc) for additional flavor?

This method of cooking already includes the ingredients used in a pan sauce and I'll presume that the taste would be more o less the same.

So there must be other benefits/differences in the methods. Any ideas?

[nakji]

I tried an Asian-inspired pan sauce last night. I pan-seared a couple of pork loin steaks that had been marinated in soy and green onion powder. I was going to just pull them out of the pan and serve them with ssamjang, but when I saw the sear marks in the pan, I thought, "Hmm."

So I deglazed with the end of a bottle of Shaoxing, threw in some chopped garlic for garniture de base, then a tablespoon of miso for fond - then finally - and I should really be posting this over on the "Hall of Shame" topic - some Kewpie sesame dressing as a liaison. (What can I say? I've been trying to use up the ends of my condiment bottles before leaving my apartment for a month)

I'm happy to say this strange experiment turned out salty, but delicious. A little less miso, next time; and possibly sesame paste instead of dressing for the finisher, I may have a winner.

[nickrey]

Interesting thread.

One thing that seems to be missing from most of the descriptions is adding an acid after cooking but before serving to better balance the flavours.

[ChickenStu]

No doubt. A few drops of vinegar or citrus juice just before serving can make all the difference in the world.

[nakji]

Yeah, a drop of Chinkiang vinegar last night probably would have cut the saltiness. Note for next time.

I was trying to think of other sauces that could be made with condiments like gochujang... Chili cream sauce maybe?

[ChickenStu]

When I think back, the thing that impacted my cooking most from culinary school was the exercises on balance of fat, salt, and acidity in foods and with beverage pairings.

[stuartlikesstrudel]

Is there much room for this kind of pan sauce in vegetarian cooking? I often don't "need" a sauce with my meals because i'm not doing the lump-of-protein style dish that goes well with a sauce, but having said that, there's always room for sauce

I wonder about using crispy bits left in the pan after roasting veges, or something like that...? But i'm having trouble thinking of much outside of that, and even what you would do in those cases to make something compelling.

(note that i'm talking really about this "pan sauce" idea, i know there's all the other sorts of sauces from other cooking styles, as well as hollandaise and all those kinds).