Ruhlman's Twenty (32 page)

Hollandaise is one the great transformations of butter. It can be varied any number of ways. Use dried tarragon in the reduction and add chopped fresh tarragon to the finished sauce for one of the greatest sauces ever made, béarnaise, which is excellent with beef. Or simply season the sauce with lemon juice to make an all-purpose hollandaise for vegetables and fish.

Two phases follow: cooking the egg yolks and emulsifying the butter. It’s easiest to cook the eggs over simmering water. If you use direct heat, be careful not to overcook the eggs. After the eggs are airy and hot, you remove the pan from the heat and whisk in melted butter. Some cooks use whole butter and keep the sauce over heat, but I think you have more control using melted butter.

1 tablespoon minced shallot

10 or more peppercorns, cracked

1 bay leaf, crumbled

¼ cup/60 milliliters white wine vinegar or sherry vinegar

Kosher salt

¼ cup/60 milliliters water

3 large egg yolks

2 to 3 teaspoons lemon juice, or more to taste

1 cup/225 grams butter, melted in a vessel from which you can pour it in a thin stream

Cayenne pepper (optional)

Combine the shallot, peppercorns, bay leaf, vinegar, and a three-finger pinch of salt in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook until the vinegar is gone, leaving a damp glaze in the pan. Add the water and bring to a simmer, then strain into a medium saucepan, which you’ll be using to make the sauce.

Bring a large pot of water to a simmer. Add the egg yolks to the vinegar reduction. Hold the saucepan in the simmering water and whisk the eggs continuously until they are fluffy and warm, 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk in 2 teaspoons of the lemon juice.

Take the pan out of the simmering water. Whisk in the butter, beginning with a few drops, then adding it in a steady stream, just until all the fat is incorporated (it’s fine if some of the watery whey goes into the sauce). If the sauce begins to look rough, add a few drops of cool water to smooth it out. If the sauce breaks (turns from thick to watery), put 1 teaspoon water in a clean bowl or pan and whisk the broken sauce into the water, first in a few drops, then in a steady stream. Taste the sauce. Add more lemon if you wish. Season with cayenne (if using). Cover the sauce with plastic wrap/cling film to keep it warm, but do not leave it over heat. The sauce can be made 1 hour ahead, covered, and reheated gently before serving.

One of the easiest sauces to make is simply butter, flavored with wine and herbs, that you’ve kept emulsified by whisking it into a liquid. In French cuisine, it’s called
beurre blanc
and usually follows some variation of whisking butter into reduced white wine (or, for a
beurre rouge,
into reduced red wine). Classically, the sauce is a reduction of wine and vinegar, in effect, hollandaise without the egg, and was served with lean white fish, but there’s no reason to overcomplicate matters. You can omit the tarragon for a plain butter sauce, but I love the tarragon (parsley, chives, or chervil can also be used). The version here is made in the pan in which you have sautéed chicken or fish.

2 tablespoons minced shallots

Kosher salt

½ cup/120 milliliters white wine

2 tablespoons lemon juice

½ cup/110 grams butter, cut into 8 pieces

2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon (optional)

Remove the meat or fish from the pan and keep warm. Add the shallots to the pan and sweat over medium heat for about 30 seconds, adding a three-finger pinch of salt. Add the wine and lemon juice, bring to a simmer, and reduce by about half. Reduce the heat to medium-low and whisk in the butter, one piece at a time. Stir in the tarragon (if using), just before serving.

Cream is practically a ready-made sauce. All it needs is a little reduction and a flavor. Here, pepper-corns and shallot are sautéed in the pan in which beef has been cooked. The pan is deglazed with cognac, and then cream is cooked down to the desired consistency. The sauce is usually served at restaurants with pricey cuts, but I recommend buying a lesser cut, such as a top sirloin, and elevating it with this sauce. Sear the meat and serve it rare, cut into slices.

1 tablespoon minced shallot

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 teaspoons peppercorns, cracked beneath a pan, then coarsely chopped

¼ cup/60 milliliters cognac

1 cup/240 milliliters heavy/double cream

Kosher salt

1 to 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

2 or 3 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves (optional; use if you have handy)

While the steak rests, pour off the excess oil from the sauté pan. Place over medium-high heat, add the shallot, garlic, and peppercorns, and sweat the shallot and garlic, stirring, for 30 seconds or so. Add the cognac, deglaze the pan, and simmer until reduced to about 1 tablespoon. Add the cream and simmer until reduced by half. Taste the sauce, and season with salt. Stir in the mustard and the thyme (if using). Spoon over the steak to serve.

Mushrooms are a great all-purpose ingredient when seared to give them flavor. I like to make what the French call a
duxelles,
finely diced mushrooms (they cook better when diced, but you can finely chop them if you wish), sautéed and flavored with wine and shallot. This versatile preparation can be used as a stuffing for ravioli or to sauce meat; blended with cream for a mushroom soup or a mushroom cream sauce; or simply served as a bed for sautéed or roasted fish, which is what I recommend here. If you have beef or chicken stock, you can add that, too, but it’s not necessary. Don’t be shy with the pepper—it pairs well with the seared mushrooms.

3 tablespoons canola oil

1 pound/455 grams button mushrooms, finely diced

2 shallots, minced

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

½ cup/120 milliliters dry white wine

¼ lemon

¼ teaspoon curry powder

2 tablespoons butter

Heat a large sauté pan over high heat until very hot. Add the oil and swirl it in the pan to coat the bottom. When the oil begins to smoke, add the mushrooms in a single layer and press them down with a spatula to sear them well, about 30 seconds. Add the shallots and stir the mushrooms, cooking them for another 30 to 60 seconds. Add a three-finger pinch of salt and several grindings of pepper. Add the wine and cook, stirring, until the wine is nearly gone. Season with a squeeze of lemon and the curry powder. Taste and adjust the seasoning if you wish. If the sauce has become too dry (it should be liquidy but not soup), add ¼ cup/60 milliliters water (or cream!) and return to a simmer. Swirl in the butter and serve.

Homemade tomato sauce is leagues better than anything you can find in a jar at the grocery store, however fancy the jar might be. Fresh tomato sauce can be made well in advance or even frozen. It should be a regular part of your repertoire.

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 Spanish onion, cut into medium or small dice

Minced garlic (optional)

Kosher salt

3 pounds/1.4 kilograms plum tomatoes, stem ends removed and tomatoes halved, or one 28-ounce/800-gram can whole plum tomatoes

4 tablespoons/55 grams butter

2 bay leaves or 1 bunch fresh oregano (optional)

Basil or other soft herb

In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, warm the olive oil. Add the onion and garlic (if using) and sweat, adding a three-finger pinch of salt and stirring, until the onion is soft and translucent.

Put the tomatoes in a blender or food processor and blend until completely puréed. Pour into the saucepan. (You can also put them into the saucepan with the onion and purée with a hand blender.) Add the butter and bay leaves (if using) and bring the sauce to a simmer, then reduce the heat to medium-low and cook until thick, about 1 hour. Taste and season with salt, adding the basil just before serving.

French sauces based on stock reductions aren’t practical for everyday cooking, so the sauces I make at home rely on ingredients I have on hand (wine, butter) or are a by-product of cooking (the skin and juices of a chicken). A notable exception is gravy, an emblem of home cooking that nevertheless strikes many with fear, especially on feast days when gravy is a requirement. But gravy is a breeze if you have good stock, because that’s all gravy is—thickened stock. For the gravy to be good, the stock has to be good. Therefore you must make your own stock. Follow the instructions for
Easy Chicken Stock
. If you’re not using a chicken carcass, substitute 2 pounds/ 910 grams chicken or turkey bones (preferably roasted, for flavor) and 8 cups/2 liters water.

Once you have stock, you whisk in enough cold roux until you get the consistency you want. Roux is simply equal parts by volume of butter and flour. The butter coats the granules of flour, keeping them from joining and clumping, and the granules then expand in the hot liquid environment of the stock. If I’m roasting a turkey, I use fat that renders from the turkey instead of the butter. You can use a slurry, cornstarch/cornflour and water, to thicken the stock, but roux gives it better body and flavor.

You can season the gravy any way you want. Add rosemary or tarragon, chopped onion, or sautéed giblets. Start with a good stock, and it’s difficult to go wrong.

4 tablespoons/55 grams butter

4 tablespoons/30 grams all-purpose/plain flour

4 cups/960 milliliters chicken or turkey stock

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Melt the butter in a small sauté pan over medium heat. When it’s bubbling, add the flour and cook, stirring until the flour and butter are evenly combined and the flour takes on the aroma of a baking pie crust, about 4 minutes. Allow it to cool completely.