Anglaise-Philes

Ever since The Great British Baking Show started airing on American television, it has consistently been one of my favorite shows. It's the perfect blend of competition and cooking show, and nothing has ever come close to matching it.

That doesn't mean people won't try, though, and TV executives weren't about to let all of us fervent American fans of the show slip through their fingers. They attempted to capture the same lightning by producing The Great American Baking Show, which premiered last year. Rather than a generalized baking experience, it aired around the holidays, which naturally drove all the challenge inspirations as well. That was probably a wise decision, even if I soon tired of Christmas-themed bakes. Mary Berry agreed to tie the show to its foreign counterpart by acting as judge, along with Johnny Iuzzini, who has already acted as a reality show judge, with limited success. In place of Mel and Sue, the show is hosted by Nia Vardolos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) and her husband, Ian Gomez (Cougar Town).

Here's the thing about capturing the spirit of a runaway hit show: It's really, really, really difficult to do. And the first season of The Great American Baking Show was so unsuccessful, it struggled to even rise to the level of pale imitation. On the most basic level, it just didn't have any of the chemistry that makes the original program so enchanting. The judges didn't gel, the hosts were visibly trying and failing to capture the giddy enthusiasm of Mel and Sue, and the contestants... Well, that was the worst part. I'm sure they're all lovely people, and I know this is a show for amateurs, but as with inaugural seasons of a lot of competitive reality shows, they suuuuuuuuuuucked. All of their bakes looked terrible. It got to the point where I was literally embarrassed for us as a country.

I chalked the show up as a failed experiment and moved on with my life. Until about a month ago, when I noticed Hulu recommending the second season to me. Against my better judgement, my curiosity was piqued. Were any lessons learned? Could the show improve, or was it just destined to languish in the shadow of its older cousin? Well, I have some good news!

Season 2 was much, much better. Nia and Ian are still a bit over-hammy, but they've settled down to an acceptable level. The judges (Johnny specifically) are still a bit awkward, but their explanations are better articulated now, and they seem to be in better moods. That may be because the contestants are worlds better this time around. It's night and day. Sure, there was some obvious chaff, but the wheat was soon separated out, and I found myself really invested in their success. Finally, some American bakers our nation can be proud of.

The second season was again holiday-themed, which limited what it could do, but I was so giddy over the show's rise in quality that I hardly minded. Does The Great American Baking Show stack up to the Great British Baking Show? Hell, no. Not in any way whatsoever. But it certainly takes home the engraved cake plate award for Most Improved.

The Great American Baking Show - Season 1: C
The Great American Baking Show - Season 2: B

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Research: Brazilian Cuisine

When I say “Chinese food” or “Italian food” or “French food”, chances are that your brain is prepared, and has got some images primed and at the ready to spring to your mind. But what’s the first thing you think of when I say “Brazilian food”? That one’s a bit of a mystery. What a perfect opportunity to do some research!

Brazilian food is not one, big, monolithic idea, of course. It’s a huge country, so just as there’s a difference in the United States between “Southern food” and “Northeastern food”, Brazilian cuisine varies by region. It’s also similar to the USA in that the differences are influenced by geography and the immigrant groups who chose to settle in each area. As far as country-wide ideas go, Brazilians love their coffee, and their national cocktail is named caipirinha, made with alcohol derived from sugar cane. In the food realm, if there’s one dish that your brain can file away as wholly Brazilian, it’s the dish that any Brazilian restaurant worth its salt will be serving: Feijoada.

Feijoada is basically a mixture of black beans and salted/smoked meats cooked over a low fire. Vegetables are then added to be cooked by the steam of the beans and meats. It is traditionally served with a dark broth alongside white rice, oranges, and greens.

It's especially common in Southeast Brazil, thanks to the domination of big cities like Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo over the region. The rice and beans are also used in many other dishes, such as one that combines grilled beef filet, rice and beans, farofa (toasted casava flour), and French fries. Corn makes an appearance in the state dishes of Minas Gerais, while Espírito Santo is influenced by the German and Italian immigrants there. Also, seafood is obviously a big part of the Brazilian Southeast.

Northern Brazil has smaller population centers, so the indigenous cuisine is a lot more present. The most well-known dish of the region is pato no tucupi. Duck is cooked, then prepared in tucupi sauce, which consists of broth extracted from cassava and boiled guava. It’s then served with white rice, manioc flour, and corn tortillas.

The Northeast gets a lot of its flavor from Africa. A popular shrimp dish (bobó de camarão) is from this region, as are many other shrimp dishes, such as an intriguing one called vatapá. Vatapá is made from bread, shrimp, coconut milk, finely ground peanuts and palm oil, all of which is mashed into a creamy paste. It can be sold with acarajé, a ball of black-eyed peas that are deep-fried in palm oil. Pancakes made out of tapioca are commonly eaten as breakfast, with fillings made out of cheese or condensed milk.

Finally, in the South, red meat is king. The United States has BBQ (or grilled meat – there’s a difference!) while southern Brazil has churrasco. It involves a variety of meats which are cooked on barbecue grill, often with supports for spits and skewers. American eaters may be tangentially aware of churrasco, due to the popularity of Brazilian steakhouses.

That’s the gist of Brazilian food, but it’s impossible to summarize fully in a brief blog post. I haven’t even mentioned grilled chicken, pizza, corn bread with fennel, Brazilian cheeses, pasta, or a metric ton of other foods that are popular down there, but I hope that I've at least gotten you started. The best way to continue this research is to go eat some yourself, and I'm willing to guess that once you’re done, your brain won’t consider it such a mystery association anymore.

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Research: Quick Questions #1

Sometimes, small research topics pop up. There's not enough info to delve too deeply into these questions, but they're certainly worth looking into. Here's a handful that we covered for one episode of the podcast, but I should definitely start collecting more.

What’s the difference between crawfish and crayfish?

That depends. Where do you live? If you live in the South, the Rockies, the Mid-Atlantic, or the part of the Midwest that stretches from St. Louis to Chicago, you probably call them crawfish. If you live in the North or New England, you’ll likely refer to them as crayfish. And if you’re one of those weirdos in the middle of the Midwest or the Pacific coast, you’ll disdain both, and opt for crawdad, instead. Here’s a handy visual representation.

OK, but what’s the biological difference between these critters?

There isn’t one. It’s all linguistic. Oh, America. Never change.

What is “Carolina Gold” rice?

A restaurant menu took the time to point out that one of their entrees was being served with Carolina Gold, and it struck Kyle and me as strange that a rice would need such a specific description. We wondered what makes Carolina Gold so special. Well, it turns out that it’s special because it’s basically the progenitor of all long-grain rice in the Americas. According to the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation (which...exists), this rice originated in Africa and Indonesia, but once it arrived on our shores, it took hold in the Carolina Territory by 1685.

It became the standard for all rice served in the States, but after the Great Depression, new rice varieties crowded it out of the public eye, to the point that it became virtually extinct. Luckily for Carolina Gold, an eye surgeon named Dr. Richard Schulz collected stores from a USDA seed bank in the 1980s, and repatriated it to the Carolinas. Nowadays, it’s considered an heirloom rice, so it’s no wonder that it’s an attractive grain to serve in nice places. It’s tasty! Give it a try if you see it somewhere.

What are hoecakes, exactly?

They’re basically an unleavened cake made with cornmeal. They’re called hoecakes because they were originally baked on hoes. Hoecakes are also known as Johnny cakes, and they differ from traditional pancakes in that pancakes are generally leavened. Pancakes are also considered a sweeter dish, while hoecakes tend toward the savory.

Paella is stuffed with seafood, but do clams belong in there or not?

Do they ever! Or they don’t. Paella is one of those endlessly tweakable dishes; I found plenty of recipes that made sure to include clams, and plenty that made sure to exclude them. The meats and shellfish that go into paella have infinite permutations, but I’d suggest making sure you at least include some chorizo as one of the meats, and shrimp as one of the shellfish. Here’s a paella recipe with clams that looks fairly complex, but wow, would it be tasty.

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Research: The History of Hamburgers

It’s endlessly fascinating how mysterious a lot of food origin stories are. We tend to think of history as “This happened in this place on this date,” but when it comes to who came up with particular foods, drinks, or cooking styles, it seems we run into conflicting information more often than not. Nowadays, the humble American hamburger is practically ubiquitous, so it’s no wonder that a lot of people want the credit for introducing it, even if that credit is purely nominal. All those people are destined for frustration, though, because the history of the hamburger is a complicated tangle. I wanted to take a stab at it, though. Hamburgers are immensely popular, and are often even symbolic of America, but where did they come from?

As with 99.9999% of American foods, the hamburger didn’t really originate in America. Several sources trace them back to the Mongols in the 1200s, who stashed raw beef under their saddles as they rode around pillaging and raping. Supposedly, their butts pressed the meat into a form tender enough to eat raw, and when this tenderized raw meat was introduced to Russia, steak tartare was born. Frankly, this story sounds a little apocryphal, but like I said...complicated tangle. In any event, it’s beyond question that plenty of raw beef was being consumed.

Apparently, it took until the mid 1700s for actual cooking to be applied to these cuts of meat (again – a bit suspicious). Seafaring traders in the port city of Hamburg, Germany brought in a great deal of ground, raw meat, which the locals shaped into steak shapes and cooked. It’s about this time that we finally have some definitive historical evidence, in the form of an English cookbook called The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy, which published a recipe for “Hamburg sausage” in 1747. By 1802, the official Oxford dictionary was defining Hamburg steak as a “hard slab of salted, minced beef, often slightly smoked, mixed with onions and bread crumbs.”

This was a time that German immigrants were coming to America in great waves, and they naturally brought this preparation with them. A New York doctor named James H. Salisbury declared in 1867 that this cooked meat was a pretty healthy alternative to consuming raw beef, and the Hamburg steak soon took on his name as Americans embraced it. It was fortuitous timing that home meat grinders also became widely available about this time. The stage was set.

So, where did the modern American hamburger as we know it today come from? Good question! As mentioned above, a lot of people have laid claim to it:

-There’s Fletcher Davis (~1880), who historians believe served hamburgers in Athens, Texas before bringing them to the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904, where they were popularized.

-There are the Menches brothers, Frank and Charles (~1885), that Ohioans claim served hamburgers at the Erie county fair when they ran out of sausage and used ground beef, instead.

-There’s Charlie Nagreen (~1885), who sold meatballs at the Seymour, Wisconsin county fair, and apparently made sandwiches out of them in order to make them easier to eat while walking around.

-There’s Louis’ Lunch wagon in New Haven, Connecticut (~1895), run by Danish immigrant Louis Lassen, who is officially credited by the Library of Congress as selling the first hamburger.

-There’s Oscar Bilby (~1891), who is believed to have created the first bun specifically created for hamburgers in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A fry cook named Walter Anderson is said to have “discovered” these buns in 1916, and went on to co-found White Castle in 1921.

Whew! What a mess. It seems that without access to a time machine, we’ll never know if the hamburger can be credited to a single source, or if it was independently developed by a whole bunch of people. Happily, though, it doesn’t matter too much. Let’s just be grateful that it happened.

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Research: The History of Eggnog

Hey, did you guys know that there was an event in American history called “The Eggnog Riot”? And that its alternate name is “The Grog Mutiny”? Really! It occurred in 1826 when a bunch of cadets sneaked whiskey into the U.S. Military Academy for a Christmas party, and wound up getting into a huge, drunken brawl. Twenty cadets were court-martialed, and one of the participants was future Confederate president Jefferson Davis. How come high school history classes never cover cool stuff like this?

Though eggnog is usually considered a holiday drink, a lot of people like to indulge in it throughout winter. As with a lot of drinks, there are ton of different ways to make it. When it first came about in England, it was made with wine. When it arrived in America, rum was favored. In the southern states, they prefer bourbon. In Puerto Rico, they add coconut juice/milk. Mexico intensified it with grain alcohol. And in Peru, they add a brandy called pisco.

Eggnog dates back to Europe in the Middle Ages, and probably evolved from a drink called posset, which is hot milk that has been curdled with wine or ale, with spices added. The concoction was often used as a remedy for colds and flu, and sometime during its rise in popularity, eggs began to show up in posset recipes. The “nog” part of the name is likely derived from noggin, a term for a small, carved wooden cup that was used to serve alcoholic drinks of all stripes.

In the 18th century, eggnog crossed the pond to the American colonies. Brandy and wine were heavily taxed, so America stuck out its collective tongue, and switched to Caribbean rum, which was far cheaper. In Britain, eggnog was a drink that was mainly consumed by aristocracy, but over here in America, its cost-effectiveness, plus easy access to cows (milk) and chickens (eggs) made it a popular drink for all classes. Rum became harder to obtain after the Revolutionary War, which is when domestic whiskey became the booze of choice to include. George Washington was a big fan of eggnog, and even devised his own extremely boozy recipe that utilized rye whiskey, rum, and sherry.

Weirdly, eggnog doesn’t seem to have any official historical affiliation with Christmas. It’s served warm, and it’s mostly served in social settings, so it makes sense that it would insinuate itself into the winter holidays. But no holiday is required to enjoy a cup of nog, and never has been. In Baltimore, there was a tradition in which young men would visit all of their friends on January 1. At each of the homes, the visitor would be offered some eggnog, and got progressively drunker throughout the day. How awesome is that?!? We tend to think of the past as stodgy and prudish, but once you start digging into the history of popular foods and drinks, it becomes clear that people have been cutting loose since the very beginning.

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Research: Food Terminology #2

Another upscale meal, another menu full of terminology that was either completely foreign to me, or that I'd heard of, but wanted to get a more precise understanding of. Let's tiptoe up to these advanced food concepts and enrich our culinary knowledge! First, let’s run through a few quick ones that may be unfamiliar to more timid eaters:

Brioche: A bread of French origin that is sometimes also referred to as a pastry, due to its high egg and butter content.

Aioli: An emulsion (like mayo), made of a base of garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, and egg yolks. An additional flavor is usually added (lemon aioli, basil aioli, etc.)

Mascarpone: A soft, easily-spreadable Italian cheese made from cream, coagulated by the addition of citric acid or acetic acid. When referring to mascarpone, please do not say "MAR-sca-pone".

Sweetbreads: The glands (usually thymus and/or pancreas) traditionally from a calf or lamb, though the term has expanded to cover more glands from more types of animals.

Tartare: A general term for dishes including raw meat or fish.

Now, let’s talk about some of the components of this particular meal that you probably don’t run across as often:

Arancini: Originating in Sicily, arancini are stuffed rice balls which are coated with breadcrumbs and fried. Generally, they are filled with meat sauce, tomato sauce, and mozzarella. Peas are also a popular arancini stuffing. Naturally, there are countless variants. The one that inspired this entry was a squid ink arancini, which was wonderful.

Chouquette: Similar to a cream puff, chouquettes are a light, baked pastry, usually filled with a custard or mousse, and sprinkled with pearl sugar on top. The one we got for this meal was far bigger than a traditional chouquette, did away with the pearl sugar, and had a filling that utilized some pretty boozy eggnog.

Cardoon: Also called “artichoke thistle”. Native to the Mediterranean region, it belongs to a plant family that also includes globe artichokes. This meal included the buds, but the leaf stalks are also often eaten after being steamed or braised. Several popular soups and stews in Spain and Italy call for cardoon.

Sabayon: A light, airy custard that originated in Italy. As with a lot of foreign words, it has several spelling variants (zabaione, zabajone, zabaglione). It's made with egg yolks, sugar, and Marsala wine, and is usually served as dessert. This version was included in the main portion of the meal, incorporated pumpkin, and was served on pasta.

Tortelli: A square-shape filled pasta, similar to ravioli. It's tortellini's big brother, and there is actually a special type served in the Apuan region of Italy that once was only cooked on Shrove Tuesday. This one was a lot less restrictive, and was served di zucca (with pumpkin).

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Research: The History of Fondue

Remember fondue? A lot of today's youths probably don't. Or at least, they never experienced the time that it was such a huge part of home entertainment. You couldn't escape it in the '80s. It's a dead food trend, but just because something is no longer a big part of popular food culture doesn’t mean it’s bad, or that it wasn’t worthy of its time in the sun. As you ease into the colder months, there’s actually a lot to be said for dipping hearty bread into bubbling hot cheese. So although fondue is about as hip as the Macarena right now, we should all still have a lot of affection for it. But how did it get its start?

Well, you’re going to have to go pretty damn far back for the answer to that. Like as far back as Homer’s Iliad, which mentions a dish made of melted goat cheese, wine, and flour. Unfortunately for Greece, they can’t claim credit for the idea of modern fondue, though. That honor goes to Switzerland. The practice of dipping bread in melted cheese cooked with wine first appeared in a Swiss cookbook in the late 17th century, though Swiss citizens were likely already preparing it during the colder months when bread and cheese were some of the few fresh ingredients they had access to. The word fondue is from the French for “to melt”, and was first referred to as such in 1735, making the jump to English in 1878. Took us long enough, didn’t it?

In the 1930s, the Swiss Cheese Union served as a cartel to retain control of cheese production. They very cleverly pushed for fondue to become a national dish of Switzerland. It worked, and after lobbying to restrict cheese production to a very few varieties, they were able to maintain a stranglehold on a massive amount of wealth. In fact, Swiss cheese makers pretty much ruled the country’s economy for about 80 years. And here you thought cheese was boring.

Cheese fondue isn’t the only kind, of course. In the Middle Ages, field workers in France would stick raw meat into a communal pot of boiling oil whenever they could catch a few minutes off. Chinese hot pot is basically fondue with broth as the cooking liquid. And Americans sweetened things up, as we are wont to do, by developing chocolate fondue in the mid-20th century. But if you want to honor the true origins of fondue, then go liquefy some Gruyere. You don’t need to be a trendsetter to eat well.

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Research: Soups vs. Stews

“Versus” implies an adversarial relationship, but in all of the Versus posts to date, the information I tracked down was delivered with a mostly precise, academic tone of voice. After all, it’s entirely understandable why you might not know the differences between Cajun and Creole food, so there’s no need to get emotional about it. When it came to discerning the differences between soups and stews, however? People have opinions. Strong ones! That’s probably because the soup/stew label is more about personal style, rather than an accepted historical taxonomy. There doesn’t really seem to be a standard definition that can be applied to either soup or stew, but that certainly doesn’t stop people from trying.

If you asked most people to come up with the main difference between soup and stew, they’d say something about texture. Soups are thin and liquid; stews are thick and hearty. And honestly, this isn’t a terrible method of differentiating. After all, when you describe soups, you’re usually focusing on the broth. When you describe stews, you’re usually describing the solid ingredients that make up its bulk. Plus, stewing is a specific cooking method that involves slow cooking solids in moist heat, which would lend support to this argument. As one article put it, “When you make a beef stew, you are stewing the beef, which says nothing about what you’re stewing it in. On the other hand, when you make a chicken soup (or a chicken stock or broth which is the base of a chicken soup), then your objective is essentially to make chicken-flavored liquid – to extract the flavor of the solids into the liquid. If some flavorful solids remain, then that is incidental as opposed to intentional.”

The thick/thin dichotomy may be the main way of differentiating soup and stew, but it is not the only metric, though. There are plenty of soups that have as thick a consistency as any stew. So let’s take a brief look at some of the other ways people assign distinctions:

Serving Temperature: Soups can be eaten hot or cold. Some don’t even need to be cooked at all, and some are served for dessert. But while soups fall all over the spectrum, stews are always eaten hot.

Importance to the Meal: This was one of the stranger claims I found, but it makes a certain amount of sense. In short, stews are generally eaten as an entree, but soups are incidental. That is to say, if you’re eating a stew, it’s the centerpiece of your meal. Soup, on the other hand, is treated as an appetizer or a side dish. Some people even dug down into the size that the ingredients are chopped into. Big chunks of meat are important, and thus belong to a stew. Small ones are just there to flavor the broth, and are thus a soup.

Cooking Method: As mentioned above, when you “stew” a meat, you’re slowly cooking it in moist heat over a long period of time. So, if you’re making a stew, it’s more likely that you’re doing just that: Cooking the ingredients low and slow. Meanwhile, a great number of soups (though by no means all) can be made quickly and with a high, rolling boil. Plenty of soups can be knocked out in no time, but stews take patience.

Flavor Source: Are you relying on herbs and spices? Are you bringing out the flavors locked in bones or root veggies? You, sir or madam, have a soup on your hands. If, however, the main flavor of your dish is coming from meat (fish, vegetables, etc.), then it’s more likely to be thought of as a stew. This difference is a little too imprecise for me, but I did run across it, so I'm passing it along.

Cultural Background: Some sources noted that something that would be called a stew in one country would be considered a soup in another. The most fanciful thing I found suggested the following thought experiment: If someone you love isn’t feeling well, would you bring them this dish to make them feel better? If so, it’s a soup. If not, it’s a stew.

No matter what the differences between soups and stews, they're certainly always welcome, especially in the colder months, when we’ll all be spending a lot of time indoors. If you’re looking for something to do, why not whip up a big, hearty beef stew, settle in, and write a more definitive categorization for this food family? Both the culinary world and the linguistic world would appreciate it, thanks.

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Research: Mother Sauces

I love the feeling of curiosity that sparks in my mind when I encounter an origin, trend, or mystery surrounding food. When my friend Kyle got an entree that was served with an accompanying agrodolce sauce, I was as excited about looking into what its components were as I was in tasting it. During that minor research avenue, it struck me that it linked up to a major one. There’s an entire class of sauces that are far more defined, yet never receive a lot of attention in popular food culture. I'm talking about Mother Sauces, which as the name suggests, provides the basis for countless offshoots. Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard the term; it’s puzzling how little they’re discussed. Ready to get your taxonomy knowledge on? Let’s get saucy!

Before we get to the moms, though, here’s a brief description of that agrodolce sauce: For anyone who speaks Italian, it won’t come as a huge surprise that this is a sweet-and-sour sauce. It’s primarily used in Italian cuisine, and is made by reducing vinegar and sugar. Additional ingredients (in this case, it was ginger for use on a trout entree) are often added. If this method sounds familiar, give yourself a gold star for recognizing its almost identical cousin, gastrique. This is also a good place to point out that not all sauces trace back to one of the Mother Sauces: Gastrique, agrodolce, and many others are excluded from the family tree. And though those exceptions can be delicious, today is devoted to the sauce matriarchs.

Béchamel
Béchamel is also known as “white sauce”, and is often considered the simplest of the Mother Sauces, since you don’t have to make a stock. It utilizes milk as a base, which is thickened with a roux (flour and butter), and generally flavored with onion, shallots, and spices such as pepper, clove, or nutmeg. Béchamel is the mother of many cream and cheese sauces, and shows up in a lot of egg, vegetable, casserole, and baked pasta dishes, such as lasagna. Secondary sauces that owe allegiance to Béchamel include Mornay sauce, Soubise sauce, and the good ol’ Cheddar sauce that shows up in our mac & cheese.

Velouté
Velouté is also a white sauce thickened with a roux, but this time, the “white” refers to the stock it uses as its base (chicken, fish, or veal). The stock replacing the milk is the main difference between Velouté and Béchamel, although sometimes, a Velouté will be thickened with a liason (egg yolk and cream) instead of a roux. Velouté also has three main secondary sauces, serving as mothers of various sauces themselves. Velouté made with chicken stock and fortified with cream becomes a Suprême sauce. Using fish stock (plus white wine and cream) yields a White Wine sauce. And veal stock thickened with a liason is known as Allemande sauce. These three daughters then go on to propagate tasty sauces such as herb sauces, curries, or Normandy sauce for light poultry and fish dishes.

Espagnole
Espagnole is also known as “brown sauce”, and is more complex than some of the others. At first glance, it seems like it’s just brown (beef) stock thickened with roux, but unlike Velouté, this sauce has additional steps involved. Tomato puree and mirepoix (carrots/celery/onion) are added to deepen the flavor, and let’s not forget that brown stock itself involves more work than a white one. The sauce is then refined into a demi-glace, which is used as a starting point for the secondary sauces. The demi-glace step isn’t strictly necessary, but since it adds so much flavor and body, it generally piggybacks in on the Espagnole’s back. The secondary sauces in this family are often used on roasted meat dishes like duck and lamb, and include Bordelaise sauce, Madeira sauce, and red wine/port reductions.

Hollandaise
Hey, we’ve got places to be and things to do! How about a sauce that’s not so much work? Hollandaise to the rescue! In Hollandaise, all you need to do is slowly whisk clarified butter into warm egg yolks. Additional flavors can be added, of course, but that’s the basis. Hollandaise can be used on its own, but you shouldn’t ignore its secondary sauces, the most famous of which is Béarnaise sauce. Others include Mousseline sauce (Hollandaise with whipped cream folded in), and Mourtarde sauce (Hollandaise with Dijon mustard). Hollandaise sauces are terrific on eggs, but can also be used for vegetables and poultry.

Tomate
Tomate (or “tomato” or “red”) sauce is probably the most familiar to American eaters, but can be prepared in a plethora of ways. Obviously, it has a tomato base, but there are tons of methods for thickening that base. As with the other Mother Sauces, you can use a roux. Or you can thicken it with additional purees. Or you can reduce it. Or, like a lot of chefs, you can decide that the tomatoes are thick enough themselves. Classic Tomate is flavored with rendered salt pork, mirepoix, or meat stock. Tomate is good on pretty much anything, but especially pasta. In addition to Puttanesca, Creole sauce and Provençale sauce fall under the Tomate umbrella.

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