Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–so glad you’re here!
A couple of weeks ago, I started my series on the “mother” sauces of California Cuisine. French Cuisine has five mother sauces: Veloute, Hollandaise, Espanole, Bechemel and Sauce Tomat. Since California Cuisine does not have an official list of foundational sauces, and I thought it should, I came up with the following seven sauces: mayonnaise, vinaigrette, salsa, Bernaise (or Hollandaise), pesto, chimichurri and basic tomato.
And today, I’m adding one sauce and re-thinking another.
I have had several fun challenges to this project, including a good friend who suggested that soy sauce should be included in this list. I agree. Soy sauce is a ubiquitous base for many of the sauces used in Asian cuisine such as ponzu, stir-fry, oyster and teriyaki sauces, and thus should have a place at the foundational sauce table. I am now pondering the question of whether or not chimichurri is but an herb-based vinaigrette–and I’m leaning toward a “yes,” but I’m still pondering it. Let me know what you think!
In my posts for the last couple of weeks, I have featured recipes for sauces using my first foundational sauce, mayonnaise. These recipes included the sauce for honey-pecan prawns, several different kinds of aioli, tartar sauce and even a really terrific chocolate cake using mayonnaise as a binding ingredient.
Today, I’m turning my attention to vinaigrette, which I’ll be featuring for the next couple of weeks as we work our way through the mother sauces.
At its most basic, vinaigrette is oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. I have used this dressing in a pinch dozens of times and it’s a great, simple way to dress a salad using ingredients that virtually everyone has on hand at all times. The basic ratio is three parts oil to one part vinegar, salt and pepper to taste. This little dressing is also great drizzled over fish, chicken or vegetables to give them a little extra punch of flavor, or even used as a dipping sauce for bread–especially when used with a pungent vinegar such as a balsamic.
But vinaigrettes can be so much more than just these four simple ingredients. In upcoming posts, I’ll share recipes for various kinds of vinaigrettes, which are incredibly versatile and can become the base for pasta sauces, marinades, and for potato and pasta salads, not to mention a hit of acid for an earthy dish like lentils or quinoa. The list goes on.
But first, tomorrow, I’m going to take a dive into emulsification: why and when you should consider using an emulsifier in your vinaigrette.
Until then,
Peace, love and good food,
Keri
