Licking the Plate

[Carrot Top]

I can say with some authority (having moments ago experienced this divine epiphany) that the absolute best sauce in the world to sop up from the plate, leaving not a single drop, with some bread or even licking the plate with your tongue or dabbling it with your fingers, is Charcutiere Sauce. It must be made in the pan with the pan drippings. Extra should be made. Bread should be ready. You can forget the pork chops. Give them to someone else.

Sauce Charcutiere

I've known this for some time and forget it too often, leaving weeks go by without making this dish.

Any other contenders to the title of Sauce that Makes you Lick the Plate?

[shellfishfiend]

I am not sure if it is the type of sauce you are referring to, but the suace that results from BBQ shrimp is plate licking worthy-imo. It is buttery, spicy and (especially if the shrimp are head-on) full of salty shrimp flavor. It is a dish that is always served with bread, because to not do so would drive diners to either ladle it up with a spoon or tip the bowls and drink it.

[PatyGirl]

All sauces make me want to lick the plate!

I have to contain myself in public so as not to embarass the people I am with. I often find sauces to be the best part of the meal.

[cdh]

Years ago, the restaurant Z-tejas in Austin, TX used to do a dish of Gorgonzola ravioli in an ancho pepper sauce... that sauce was worth licking the place... yum.

The principle flavors were ancho pepper, parmagiano, herbs, and a good bit of saltiness. Delicious.

[dockhl]

Many years ago the sadly missed Under the Blue Moon restaurant in Chestnut Hill (Philadelphia) served a Sesame Pecan Chicken that had a sauce of pan drippings, heavy cream and dijon mustard (I hated mustard) that was so deliicious. I have the recipe tucked away soemwhere. Need to look that one up again........

[Grub]

All sauces make me want to lick the plate!

I have to contain myself in public so as not to embarass the people I am with. I often find sauces to be the best part of the meal.

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There exists an expression, in several languages that goes something like this: "Hunger is the best cook." I've never gotten around to figuring out if this is true, but I heard that in French, there is an expression that goes something like this: "A sauce is the best cook."

Does anyone know if this is true or not?

[SuzySushi]

The ong choi stir-fried with Yellow Bean Sauce served at Keo's Thai restaurants in Hawaii!

[JeanneCake]

This question made me remember (fondly) a meal I had in the UK at an Indian restaurant some many years ago. I was there frequently on business and most of my colleagues knew that if they left the choice up to me where to eat at night, it was going to be Indian and I would invariably get Chicken Tikka Masala. They were very kind, and we all ate Indian all the time!

I forget where we were that night, but the sauce was so good I would have eaten in on the proverbial turkish towel (I think it was Diamond Jim Brady who said something like that - whatever he was eating was so good, he'd even eat it if it were slathered over a turkish towel.)

[Kim Shook]

All sauces make me want to lick the plate!

I have to contain myself in public so as not to embarass the people I am with. I often find sauces to be the best part of the meal.

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There exists an expression, in several languages that goes something like this: "Hunger is the best cook." I've never gotten around to figuring out if this is true, but I heard that in French, there is an expression that goes something like this: "A sauce is the best cook."

Does anyone know if this is true or not?

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I found this, Grub.

[Carrot Top]

Whew. I swear that sauce gave me some sort of "buzz" last night.

And then I started reading of the other sauces you all posted, and it was like "YEAH!" "WHAM!" "WHEEEE!" "Sigh."

Very strange. Sort of like a virtual hot date, but with sauce ideas.

Yikes.

............................................

I thought of two more sauces that make me want to lick the plate - green peppercorn with a glace de viande base swirled with cream, studded with a hint of shallots. . .and cream gravy made with good ham.

I can't put my finger on any dessert sauces, exactly, at the moment.

Though I'd like to.

[Catriona]

Like shellfishfiend... The juices left over when you've eaten all the grilled prawns on your plate...

prawn juice... yum.

[Carlovski]

Seems like a common theme is anything that is savoury, but a bit sweet, with a touch of spicy heat - works for me!

[Carrot Top]

Seems like a common theme is anything that is savoury, but a bit sweet, with a touch of spicy heat - works for me!

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Yeeeesss. . .but I would add that it must also be unctuous. Mouthfeel, you know. Or so I think. And for heat one can sometimes subsititute the bite of a bit of sour.

[Carrot Top]

All sauces make me want to lick the plate!

I have to contain myself in public so as not to embarass the people I am with. I often find sauces to be the best part of the meal.

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There exists an expression, in several languages that goes something like this: "Hunger is the best cook." I've never gotten around to figuring out if this is true, but I heard that in French, there is an expression that goes something like this: "A sauce is the best cook."

Does anyone know if this is true or not?

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I found this, Grub.

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In "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations" there is this:

"There's no sauce in the world like hunger." From Cervante's "Don Quixote" of all things.

Lots of good quotes from old Donny. Across the page, I see:

"Put you in this pickle" and "A finger in every pie".

Besides that classic "No better than she should be".

The guy must have been very hungry for all the writing of food he did, and I imagine that he absolutely did lick his plate.

[Bunny Man]

Call me silly but I would say that if you are serving a sauce and it doesn't make you want to sop it all up, then your sauce needs work. The first thing that comes to my head is the jus that I make, when I do my 5 hour slow roast chicken, which makes my wife swoon.

[Carrot Top]

Yes, I would agree with you. But some sauces just say "eat me up, I'm really yummy" and others are rather a different animal. Animals of the sort that make one act animalistic in return.

Oh P.S. Hey Bunny Man, welcome to eG by the way.

Edited November 7, 2006 by Carrot Top (log)

[Carrot Top]

Actually, thinking about it more (though really I would rather go lick some good sauce off a plate in this moment ) it could be that there are strong personal preferences at work unseen (someone dub in the Twilight Zone music now, please. . .) in these things.

For as I read other's choices, I can completely empathize and feel the urge to lick the plate with the sauces they chose.

Shellfish sauces. . .YES! Cheese and heat. . .ahhhhh. Rich chicken-y savors. . .mmmhmmm. And all the other tastes.

But every time I think of a sauce that I really need to hide in the kitchen, bringing the plate right up to my face to lick each drop off, it is based on beef.

I dunno.

Is everyone else like this? Or do you cross sauce borders. . .?

[SheenaGreena]

not a sauce, but when I cook my eggs sunny side up I sop up and scrape every bit of egg yolk off my plate. I'll use anything available, toast, sausage, bacon, pancakes, and yes even my fingers.

[Bueno]

While not exactly a composed "sauce" per se, the liquor left over from a big bowl of freshly steamed mussells with butter, white wine and herbs is my favourite bowl-licking temptress of all.

[PatyGirl]

[Domestic Goddess]

CarrotTop and Sheena - I would confess of being a plate licker too. Hubby also licks his plate, showing me how much he loved the roast or steak that I made. I sometimes use my fingers to lick off the sauce or egg yolk (like Sheena) and I found my eldest (11-year old) doing the same thing with the adobo sauce. LOL All in the family...

[Carrot Top]

An excess of joy exists in a family of plate-lickers. Or so I think, anyway.

And the perfection of an egg yolk is an astonishing thing, isn't it?

Personally I was stunned to see this test composed without "sauce" on the list:

Poll

Which food comes closest to a spiritual experience when consumed in everyday life?

Chocolate

Bacon cheeseburger

Chicken soup

Bread

Wine

Pastry

Tofu

Coffee

Peanut butter

Fruit

(You can take the quiz to find the results at Beliefnet - it's on the right-hand lower side of the page linked. . .

Yes. . .I now am having a sense that plate-licking is indeed devotional rather than animistic.

[Domestic Goddess]

Now Carrot you got me hankering for a sunny-side up egg with toast soldiers for dipping. And it's 11:00 pm now!

[Carrot Top]

It is the unalienable right of every Goddess, whether Domestic or not, to indulge in a perfectly cooked egg yolk or two at bedtime, or whenever/wherever the urge may strike. I hope you did indulge.

I think I'll have some too, in ardent devotion of all good things, for lunch. Easier to make than sauce.

.................................................

P.S. (Just a bit later. . .) Two eggs, poached. Toast made, buttered. Took about three minutes to make, and even less than that to eat. Fie! I say to Rachel Ray holding notions of thirty-minute meals. Fie!

More time to do other silly things now.

Edited November 8, 2006 by Carrot Top (log)

[srhcb]

Sauce Charcutiere

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Why, I'll give you échalotes, cornichons au vinaigre, and, especially, de bouillon de boeuf!

SB (ne peut pas lire la langue française )