White Butter sauce

[Bond Girl]

I am thinking of making my Gnocchi with butter sauce with truffle oil for a party, but would need to make it ahead. Can anyone tell me if there is a version that I can re-heat quickly? Preferably in a microwave or a oven.

[Suzanne F]

What's the sauce you normally use?

In any case, you'll want to add the truffle oil just before serving; otherwise the perfume may be lost.

[Bond Girl]

I usually heat up some garlic add a bit of white wine, wait until it's cooked almost out, stir in some heavy cream, and whisk in some butter. I usually shve some pecorino cheese as topping and then drizzle a drop of two of truffle oil. I usually cook this in a suce pan ans never had to reheat it. Therefore, I don't know how this would turn out in when reheated in a microwave or a conventional oven.

[schaem]

I'm not sure what you mean by butter sauce, but any attempt to reheat an emulsified sauce will result in breakage (seperation). Your nice creamy sauce will just seem greasy when you reheat it. If you keep the sauce seperate from the rest of the dish, you can reheat it in a pot and try using a hand-blender to temporarily re-emulsify. It will still break, but may hold together long enough to fool people.

[Suzanne F]

Schaem's suggestion seems fine. Pack up the gnocchi (very lightly coated with butter so they don't stick together) and sauce separately, heat them separately (keep the gnocchi covered), combine them when hot, add your truffle oil and cheese. Yum.

However, am I correct in assuming that you will NOT have a burner available at serving time? If so, then you can't heat the sauce as schaem suggests. Just heat it however you can. (I have very little experience with microwaving, but if you're comfortable with it, fine.)

One other suggestion: boil down the cream a bit before you add it to the au sec garlic/wine. That will help to keep it from breaking.

Oh, and by the way, Bond Girl: regarding your e-mail -- none of this was anything to keep private -- I asked here because I figured other people would like to see and offer their advice. No need to deny everyone the fun by going private. Now, gossiping about other eGulleteers ... that's another matter entirely! Welcome to eGullet, I hope you stay and enjoy.

[Bond Girl]

Thanks everyone.

[FoodMan]

I would imagine you should keep the butter seperate from the rest of your sauce until ready to serve. Juyst heat up in the microwave (the sauce without the butter) then whisk in the butter and serve.

FM