Kitchen Diary - Butter Sauces revisited

Roasts and sometime, flavourless meat and fish are a necessity of our daily lives it seems.

Depending on your mood, a butter sauce, with or without a little flour as a thickener can be a delight to make and to serve.

Utilising pre-floured butter portions as well as herb and garlic butters are always a quick solution to recipe's short comings in flavour. 

There comes a time when you don't really want to over season fish or white meat as you aren't completely aware of its provenance and leftovers, especially roast pork, beef and turkey can be a little bland without their regular accompaniments, and these are grateful for the added moisture and silkiness a butter sauce provides.

A good standby (and quick butter sauce) utilises a Provençal style butter which is easily kept in the freezer.

 

Provençal style butter

 

Take:

• 250 gram pack of softened butter
• Four or five cloves of garlic
• Four heaped tablespoons of finely chopped thyme, rosemary and oregano
• Four chopped and then mashed anchovies

Blend them together with three/four tablespoons of good olive oil.  Stand in the fridge for just five or ten minutes and roll into a sausage about an 3 cm in diameter and divide into four portions and freeze.

The sauce itself in simplicity itself, a reduction of 175 mls of dry white wine and 175 mls of vegetable stock - so that you are left with about 150 mls of liquid.  Add half a portion of your butter and melt into the sauce.  Then, with a hand whisk, add the remaining butter a small amount at a time until the result is an emulsion which covers the back of a spoon evenly.

Alternatively, add a small chopped onion to a medium heat with a quarter of the portion of butter and, as the onion softens, add two teaspoons of plain flour.  Stir until the flour has been absorbed by the butter and then add the reduced wine and stock as above.  As the sauce thickens and cooks out the flour for about 10 minutes, reduce the heat slightly.  Take the sauce completely off the heat as you are about to serve and add small extra knob of butter and whisk in gently to give the sauce a sheen.

Of course, a little goes a long way but if you feel the need baking vegetables in the a sauce (especially leeks or onions) is an extremely good accompaniment or a fantastic dish in its own right and for this you will probably need a larger quantity, a little experimentation goes a long way.

One of the best butter sauces I have made in recent times is a tomato and sage sauce which is used to slowly bake courgettes red peppers.

 

Courgettes and red pepper bake in a tomato and sage butter sauce

• 3 tablespoons of good olive oil
• 1 kilo of tomatoes, skinned and roughly chopped
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 50 grams of cold water
• 2 tablespoons of plain flour
• 250 mls of dry white wine
• 250 mls of vegetable stock
• One portion (approximately 65 grams) of sage and garlic butter
• 500 grams of courgette, sliced on the diagonal
• 500 grams of red sweet peppers/paprika, cut into strips

In a large pan and over a low to medium heat, add the olive oil, tomatoes and onion and slowly cook down until the tomatoes have loosened and the onions are turning soft.  The mixture should be too dry so add the water just as things start to soften, so that by time the tomatoes and onions have started to turn into a sauce it is not sticking to the bottom of the pan.  Add the flour now and stir so that the mixture doesn't catch on the bottom.  Once thoroughly mixed through, add the wine and stock, stirring again to ensure that everything is thoroughly combined.  Cover and allow to come up to a low simmer.

At this point pre-heat your oven to 180 c and have a 25 cm x 25 cm oven dish ready.  Ideally about 4 to 5 cm deep.

Taking the lid off the pan, allow the sauce to reduce by a third and then add half the butter and stir in and place to one side, covered and off the heat.

Just before adding to the oven dish and the vegetables, in small portions, add the remaining butter and using a hand whisk, combine thoroughly.

With a large spoon or ladle, add about a quarter of sauce to the oven dish and then arrange the vegetables on top.   Add the remain sauce, there should be enough to coat the vegetables although they will not be submersed.  The vegetables will, as they cook, bake down so that the finished result should look like a pink Gratin!   The dish should be covered initially with kitchen foil for the first 25 minutes of the cooking time.  Uncover, and then bake for a further 25 minutes placed towards the bottom of the oven (if you're oven is fan assisted, turn your heat down to 160c).