In part four of our five part mother sauce series, we talk about Sauce Tomat, the base for many variations of modern tomato sauce. We finish up our talk on thickening agents, with a quick discussion on purees, bread crumbs, and food grade gums like Ultra Tex 3 and Xanthan Gum. In the main technique segment, we go over Escoffier's classic recipe for Sauce Tomat, and then cover some modern variations.
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There are 12 Comments
@ Patrick, You could use the
@ Patrick,
You could use the mirepoix, but you would have to puree it really fine in a blender. Anything too course and you're sauce will look broken and chunky. Make sure you pass it through a chinois before you serve.
@ GreenBake, While the
@ GreenBake,
While the pureed mirepoix will add flavor, the puree as discussed in the above comment was also intended as a thickener. Adding water would drop the viscosity which could possibly lead to better flavor extraction but cancel out the thickening properties of the puree since it would now be fairly watery. If flavor extraction is really what you're after, juice the mirepoix instead of blending. You can then go back and use a food grade gum as a thickener, such as Xanthan or Ultratex.
Ultratex does need shearing power to hydrate and disperse properly, but in my experience, it requires less shearing power than xanthan gum.
Does Ultratex 3/8 need to be
Does Ultratex 3/8 need to be heated or can it be use in cold liquid?
Yep, you're right on the
Yep, you're right on the money.
The only techniques I'm
The only techniques I'm familiar with are pulling the air out with a chamber vacuum or letting it settle for a few days in the fridge (not optimal).
I'm sure there's other high tec ways to accomplish this, but whether or not they're practical for the kitchen, I'm not sure.
@ Brian, I always refer to a
@ Brian,
I always refer to a skillet as a saute pan because that's what we call it in the kitchen. But yes, it's technically incorrect, although I think it's sort of ass backwards to call the pan you saute with a skillet and a pan with straight edges that you can't saute in a saute pan. Zalbar wrote an awesome article explaining the origins of the terminology: http://stellaculinary.com/blog/lost-in-translation
"Do you really need to salt pasta water if you're putting salt into the fresh pasta directly?"
No, but then again, I never use salt in my pasta dough. Salt will tighten gluten strands, making the pasta dough less extensible and more difficult to roll out. But if you salt your pasta dough, you don't need to salt the water.
"Can a person banish the evil spirits from his evil colander by reserving some pasta water before pouring the rest through the colander, or do I need to purchase some salted holy water?"
Sure, different strokes for different folks. I usually go straight from pasta water to pan using tongs, but if you want to use a colander and reserve some pasta water, that will work too.
If you want to buy some salted holy water, I just happen to have a few jars left.