Lemon-caper sauce

[Malawry]

If I was making a lemon-caper sauce for chicken breasts, I figure I'd use the pan I cooked the breasts in, add a knob of butter and some shallots, saute, add chicken stock, reduce, squeeze in lemon juice and add capers, and finish with some butter until it was shiny. Then I'd decorate the chicken breasts with one or two thin slices of lemon and nappe the sauce on top; there'd probably be rice underneath to sop up some of the excess.

Does this sound about right?

Now, let's suppose your best friend is really into lemon-caper sauce on chicken breasts. So much so, she wants it on the buffet for her wedding. Which you are catering. In a week and a half. She's your best friend. Of course you said "yes." (She also wants BBQ sauce available for the kids, and plain breasts available for any dieters/low carbers, so the sauces will be on the side and not just prepped and poured over the chicken.)

How would you make a lemon-caper sauce that was stable on a buffet? No splitting, no skin, no separated fat. Needs to be able to rest for, say, 2 hours (on a chafer, don't worry). Advice?

[Dave the Cook]

Would a caper-modified avgolemono work?

[jackal10]

Flavoured bechamel...

[Stagiaire]

You might want to try this...never failed me yet

- reduce chicken stock to sauce consistency

- transfer to blender

- add lemon juice to taste

- add white wine vinegar to taste

- add capers

- cover

- turn on full blast, leave on for a minute

- add whole or melted butter

- blend until emulsified

- season

- hold

Good luck

[Malawry]

She definitely will not want a creamy or starchy sauce. As for avgolemono--won't the eggs in there make it hard to hold the sauce? I think of anything with eggs in it as distinctly a-la-minute...

If I get desperate I'll probably make a veloute-based sauce (rather than a bechamel). But I'm pretty sure she meant something thinner and lighter than that.

[dano1]

hit it with a little cream-i'm sure you know that already. A touch of buerre manie would work also. I personally don't have a problem holding properly made buerre blancs in a steam table with any of these additions, but these will work as a safety net if ya need it.

You will be rotating pans right? That same pan won't be sitting on the line for 2 hours. Sauce right before it goes out-you'll be fine. If you're really nervous about it lay out on a pilaf or something to temper the heat.

[carswell]

Though I've never tried it on anything but fish, I often make a simple sauce (actually, a warm vinaigrette) as follows:

- in a saucepan, combine freshly squeezed lemon juice and salt and white pepper

- stir until the salt has dissolved

- add an equal quantity of extra virgin olive oil along with capers and/or green olives and some chopped fresh herbs (dill's a favourite but fennel fronds, marjoram, rosemary, thyme and tarragon also work), alone or in combination

- heat until warm

- spoon over the cooked fish.

Of course, it's not emulsified. Does that matter?

[Malawry]

I definitely want an emulsifed sauce. People will be serving themselves on a buffet line and I can't count on them to stir the sauce well enough of it's a vinaigrette-type thing.

Stagiaire, I was hoping something like that would work.

Dano1, I didn't mean that the sauce would be sitting on a steam table for 2 hours. I meant more that there may be a max of 2 hours between when it's made and when it gets yanked from the line. I expect nearly everybody will be done with the buffet in under an hour. As I explained, the bride wants the sauces to be separate from the chicken breasts, and it's a buffet, so I can't just plate the chicken on a pilaf and send it out.

[Dave the Cook]

As long as the holding temperature isn't wildly out of control, cream should work to stabilize a butter or egg sauce. I often finish a Hollandaise before I do the final cooking, and leave it over hot water at the back of the range. It's fine for a surprisingly long time. Let the temperature get over 130 or so, though, and you've got trouble.

Alternatively, somewhere -- maybe it was in Cookwise -- there's a butter sauce technique that uses shallot puree as a stabilizer. I've tried it. It's not obnoxiously oniony, and it's as stable as . . . well, I'm having trouble with the simile, but the sauce works.

[dano1]

my reading comprehension is lacking Even easier depending on # of guests,goosenecks if your quick;). A sauce warming chafer(round)with a bain would be no prob at all to hold in during service.

[UkFoodie]

Does the Sauce need to be warm?

You could do a really loose Lemon Caper Mayonaise.

Will become more of a sauce when placed on a warm chicken breast.

[Smithy]

Does the Sauce need to be warm?

You could do a really loose Lemon Caper Mayonaise.

Will become more of a sauce when placed on a warm chicken breast.

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That sounds like a nice idea, depending on the sophistication of the guests. I have to admit, if I were looking at a mayonnaise, no matter how fancy it appeared, I'd be less inclined to put it on my chicken breast than if I knew it were a sauce. Until now, I wouldn't have thought of mayo spreading on hot meat. (Thanks for the tip!)

[chefboy24]

You might want to try this...never failed me yet

- reduce chicken stock to sauce consistency

- transfer to blender

- add lemon juice to taste

- add white wine vinegar to taste

- add capers

- cover

- turn on full blast, leave on for a minute

- add whole or melted butter

- blend until emulsified

- season

- hold

Good luck

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