LESSON 2

Thichened Sauces

The double boiler is a friend to the sauce-maker, because so many sauces need
the protection of a hot-water jacket—either to control the heat evenly and make
it easier to cook the sauce gently (as is so necessary when there are eggs in it) or to
prevent scorching (which takes place especially easily when milk is the liquid used,
Or when a special-purpose mixture is heavily thickened with flour).

But let me add at once that direct heat, if it is not too strong, may be used to
speed up the cooking of sauce-mixtures of the most-often-used kinds. When a
starchy thickener such as flour is used for a medium or thin sauce, low direct heat
may be used until the thickening has taken place—the constant stirring that is
going On provides a dependable safeguard.

Sauces are thickened in the main, by flour or another starchy ingredient or by
egg—or often, by a combination of these two thickening agents.

Starchy materials include flour, corn starch, arrowroot, etc., and of these, flour
is the most used—probably because of the fact that it thickens a mixture and is
cooked itself, in much shorter time than is required by the other starchy thickeners.
Flour makes an opaque sauce or gravy. Corn starch or arrowroot, given their longer
cooking-time, cook comparatively clear, for which reason they are used for a sauce
of bright color (as one made with fruit juice) or sauce which should for other reasons
be clear. Flour and corn starch are often interchangeable in a sauce recipe, if you
remember that 2 tablespoons flour and 1 tablespoon corn starch have about the
same thickening powers. &

Flour that is first browned—dry, or with thé fat—loses a part of its thickening
power. For that reason, a brown sauce or gravy will be somewhat thinner than a
white sauce in which an equal amount of flour is used. Or to state the case a little
differently—for a sauce of given thickness, a little more flour must be used, if it is e
already browned or is to be browned after blending with the fat.

FOR SMOOTHNESS IN A STARCH-THICKENED SAUCE

It is in the nature of starchy grains of flour, etc., to cling together and form a a
lump. It is our strategy, in using these ingredients, to take measures to prevent
lumping.

The first of these is to separate the starch-grains of flour, or corn starch, etc.,
by mixing them well with:

(a) as low as 2 parts fat to 3 parts starchy ingredient
(b) as low as 2 parts sugar to 3 parts starchy ingredient ©
(c) cold liquid to make a paste, which we usually thin to pouring consistency €

The cooking time will be reduced if the liquid is hot before being combined with
the thickening; the hot liquid is then very slowly stirred into mixture of starchy
material and fat, or starchy material and sugar; if you have mixed the flour, etc.,

7 LESSON 2 c

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