Hello everyone, this is Mustafa Egemen Sener with you again, and today I will tell you how to make homemade sauce. It’s a simple task, as the first sauces most likely appeared shortly after people learned how to cook.
Or maybe a bit later, it doesn’t matter. What’s important is that they are all made the same way – there is a base that best suits the main product, whether it’s meat, fish, pasta, salad, or vegetables. And there is something that gives it flavor.
In store-bought ketchup and mayonnaise, it’s the same thing, except the base and flavor additives, heavily loaded with preservatives and antioxidants, are added according to a technical recipe right at the factory.
A homemade sauce can consist of just two ingredients – broth and a thickener, olive oil and apple cider vinegar, cream and flour, tomato paste and chili pepper. It can be made in a minute, for example, as a dressing for a vegetable salad.
But usually, there are more ingredients – to enhance the flavor, you can use any herbs or spices. Or even unexpected, at first glance, sweet ingredients – pineapple juice, caramel.
Basics of Preparation
Since anyone can make a sauce at home, it’s worth taking a closer look at why this is necessary in an era of endless bottles of ready-made products on store shelves. Any homemade sauce recipe involves:
- The absence of preservatives and antioxidants;
- The cook’s understanding of what they are adding to the sauce and why;
- Freshness of the ingredients.
The simplest homemade mayonnaise is easy to prepare. For example, blend together egg yolks with salt, sugar, mustard, lemon juice, and oil, and the sauce is ready. Yes, it will taste different from store-bought mayonnaise, but is that really a bad thing?
Making a gravy is even easier, using the broths left over from cooking dishes. The first European medieval gravies were exactly like this. In the Middle Ages, meat was more often stewed than cooked over an open flame. In fact, all the complex dishes of haute French cuisine originated from meat gravy.
Don’t be afraid to use wine, spices, or ingredients left over from preparing salads — everything will do. If an expensive or hard-to-find ingredient is needed for the recipe, simply replace it with another.
Timeless Classics
Any classic sauce recipe made at home is just a base, from which you can create an endless variety of gravies, marinades, and sauces. Since I’ve already mentioned mayonnaise above, I’ll start the list with other simple recipes.
Béchamel
Ah, this term. It immediately makes you think it’s complicated to prepare. In reality, it’s just melted butter mixed with flour and milk. The mixture is simmered over heat until it thickens.
In classic béchamel, nutmeg and pepper are added along with salt. But essentially, you can add anything. Even the quantities of butter, milk, and flour are flexible—it all depends on the desired sauce consistency.
The tricky part? It’s not always easy to master the technique of making béchamel without it burning on your first try.
Sweet and Sour
Combine sugar, apple cider vinegar, flour, orange juice, tomato paste, soy sauce, and water in proportions of 1.5/2/1/3/1/1/4. Mix everything until smooth and the sugar dissolves, then simmer slightly. The result will be just as good as in an Asian restaurant. As always, the proportions are flexible.
Honey-Mustard
This sauce requires more ingredients but doesn’t need to be cooked. Place an egg yolk into a blender and add 50 ml of honey and 2 tablespoons of mustard. Then, add 1 tablespoon of soy sauce and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Gradually pour in 75 ml of vegetable oil while blending. Finally, add salt, pepper, and turmeric, and blend everything well once more.
Exotic Flavors from Around the World
Nowadays, you can find almost anything in an average supermarket—even canned capybara in cane syrup with passion fruit. Interestingly, not all exotic ingredients are expensive, and some recipes from distant corners of the world are no more complicated than the infamous “ketchunez.”
Comeback Sauce
This recipe was invented either in Mississippi or the swamps of New Orleans. In those hot and humid areas, food spoiled quickly. To prevent this, resourceful colonists (or their slaves) started adding cayenne pepper and horseradish to classic French mayonnaise.
By the way, the same trend is seen here—southern regions tend to have spicier cuisines. I’m not sure if this is related to food preservation, but the fact remains.
Mango Chutney
A recipe from India. Surprisingly, it’s not spicy unless you add a lot of chili pepper, which entirely depends on your preference. Mango pulp is blended with the juice of half a lime, 2 cloves of garlic, half a chili pepper, 1 tablespoon of honey, 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, cilantro, and half a teaspoon of grated ginger (dried ginger and cilantro can also be used). Blend everything until smooth.
Ajvar
This is more of a family of dishes based on roasted sweet peppers and eggplants. The roasted vegetables are peeled and minced. Then, anything can be added, from garlic to chili peppers of any desired heat level. After adding oil, the sauce is simmered in a pot. Sometimes ajvar is thickened to a paste-like consistency, while other times it is left more liquid.
The authorship of ajvar is claimed by all southern Slavs, the Balkans, Turks, and Arabs. The truth is likely somewhere in between.
Mistakes in Preparation
Don’t get too upset if a sauce doesn’t turn out right, or if it ends up too spicy or not spicy enough. To avoid disappointment:
- Don’t make a large batch right away, especially on your first attempt;
- Use inexpensive ingredients;
- Stir constantly if the sauce is being cooked over heat.
It’s not always easy to learn how to control the cooking temperature for something like béchamel, even though it seems simple. Also, keep in mind that not all recipes are meant for long-term storage.
Don’t be afraid to experiment—if you’ve read about an exotic herb, found it on a store shelf, or discovered a new recipe during your travels, try using that knowledge at home. That’s all for now, this has been Mustafa Egemen Sener. Wishing you pleasant and flavorful journeys!