French Sauces - Stocks - Dips and French Dressings | Provencal French Recipes Guide

Spotlight on French Sauces - Stocks - Dips and French Dressings here, this is what this page is all about.

It is a natural addition to my Provencal French Recipes Guide.

Sauces and Dressings are very important in our Cuisine on the French Riviera and by the way in all the country and actually in many places in the world!

Please feel free to add your Own Contribution(s): tip(s), trick(s) and recipe(s) by clicking this link.

I will love to hear from you.

Remember: this website is a place where we share!

Talking about French Sauces and French Dressings, I have seen in the United States in Japan, in Australia (infact in so many places!) in shops, sauces, stocks, dressings and dips ready in jars, bottles or other containers even in tubes.

Actually, not only French Sauces and French Dressings but also Italian, Greek, Spanish and others can be found in such containers.

Now this “bad habit” is coming to France.

What a pity! There is no comparison between a homemade sauce or dressing and the ones you buy in your supermarket!

And it is not that long and difficult to prepare!

Please make your own!

Around a table with friends or family, I love to share these unique specialties which have the flavour and character of my area.

When you think of French food and French cooking you probably think of French sauces.

That is right!

Once again, French Sauces and French Dressings are VERY important in our Cuisine.

Sometimes in the recipes they are part of the ingredients and sometimes also used as toppings for simply cooked foods.

On the French Riviera we have our own local French Sauces too!

It is just a part of our culture to name things (and French Sauces and French Dressings too!) with fancy names; it should not scare you!

A fancy name will only add elegance to your dish.

Example:

Endives à la Béchamel et Chemisier de Jambon à l’Epaule sur un lit de Morilles = Béchamel Ham Chicories with Morels.

What’s the difference? Just a pinch of elegance!

When you will have made French Sauces and French Dressings at home, you will see how it is simple.

After you will have just to repeat the same thing, easy!

French Sauces - A Little Bit of History

French Sauces in our country and cuisine date back to the middle Ages.

There were hundreds of sauces in the culinary repertoire.

In “classical” French cooking (19th and 20th century until nouvelle cuisine), French sauces were a major defining characteristic of our cuisine.

In the 19th century, the chef Antonin Carême classified French Sauces into four categories, each of which was based on a Mother Sauce (“Sauce Mère” or “Grande Sauce” in French).

In fact, French Sauces can be categorized by how they are made.

Mother sauces are not commonly served as they are; instead they are augmented with additional ingredients to make derivative sauces.

For example, Béchamel Sauce can be made into Mornay Sauce by the addition of Gruyere or any cheese you like, and Espagnole Sauce becomes Bordelaise Sauce with the addition of reduced red wine and poached beef marrow.

Once again, you will find several sauces all based on one particular sauce, called the mother sauce (sauce mère).

Once you understand how to make the mother sauce, it is very easy to do the variations.

If you learn how to make a Béchamel Sauce, a Hollandaise Sauce, and Mayonnaise, you will be able to make dozens of different sauces (and hundreds of different dishes)!

Back to Chef Antonin Carême, his four mother sauces were:

• Béchamel is based on milk, thickened with a white roux.
• Espagnole is based on brown stock (usually veal), thickened with a brown roux.
• Velouté is based on a white stock, thickened with a blonde roux.
• Allemande is based on velouté sauce, is thickened with egg yolks and heavy cream.

In the early 20th century, the chef Auguste Escoffier updated the classification, adding sauces such as tomato sauce, butter sauces and emulsified sauces such as Mayonnaise and Hollandaise.

Here I will discuss only savoury sauces and save the dessert sauces for another page.

This is not an exhaustive list by any means, but rather touches on some of the more commonly used Provencal French Sauces and typical French Sauces used commonly all over France .

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French Sauces

French sauces have also five categories these days (Included our local ones.

1 - Roux Sauces

Roux is made by melting butter, stirring in flour and letting it brown some.

It is the start of making many French Sauces as the traditional Béchamel Sauce (Sauce Béchamel) or the delicious Cardinal Sauce (Sauce Cardinal).

A red sauce flavoured with lobster butter and a pinch of cayenne.

2 - Stock Sauces

These sauces are based on either chicken or fish (fond blanc) or meat stock (fond brun).

The white sauce above is considered a stock sauce as well as a roux sauce.

If you combine roux with beef stock you have a Brown Sauce (also known as a Spanish Sauce).

A delicious Stock Sauce is the Pepper Sauce (Sauce Poivrade).

3 - Cold Emulsified Sauces

These sauces are based on the Mayonnaise Recipe (by the way, Mayonnaise helps protect women from strokes, says American Society for Clinical Nutrition).

This sauce is made by emulsifying oil with eggs.

Emulsifying consists of gradually adding oil to another liquid so that the oil evenly disperses in tiny droplets throughout the resulting mixture.

Aioli Recipe as example is one of the Cold Emulsified French Sauces used in my area.

4 - Hot Emulsified Sauces

Hollandaise Sauce and Béarnaise Sauce are hot emulsions made with egg yolks and butter.

Béarnaise Sauce includes tarragon and also reduced vinegar.

Together these sauces form the basis of other French sauces as Mustard Sauce (Sauce à la Moutarde).

5 - Miscellaneous Sauces

Some other French Sauces that do not go into the above mother sauces, but are easy to make and can add a touch of the French Riviera - Cote d'Azur to your meal right now (a little bit of our sun!): Dill Sauce (Sauce à l'aneth), Tomato Sauce - (Sauce Tomate) , Green Peppercorn Sauce (Sauce aux Poivrons Vert) .

Or a touch of other parts of France (with less sun but taste, still!): Blue Cheese Sauce (Sauce au Roquefort), a French Sauce that I have seen in many places in my travels.

A dream with a grilled rib steak, trust me!

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Some of the common French Sauces Used on the French Riviera - Cote d'Azur

Mayonnaise

Mayonnaise (sometimes abbreviated to mayo) is a thick sauce - condiment.

White or yellowish-white in color, it is a stable emulsion of oil, salt and vinegar, or lemon juice which uses egg yolks as an emulsifier.

In France, sometimes mustard is added as a flavouring, whereas in Spain (and Minorca) it is made using the same ingredients, but specifically olive oil as the oil (I do too!), and never with mustard.

Numerous other sauces can be created from it by adding additional seasonings as Aioli.

Aïoli - Garlic Mayonnaise (or also Aioli in English)

Aioli sums up what it means to be Provencal: imagine sitting at a table with your family and friends.

In the centre, cold cuts, grilled fish, steamed vegetables, hard-boiled eggs and fresh baked bread.

Chaos of laughter, loud conversation and clinking glasses, hands stretch across the table as all help themselves to the various foods, which are then dipped into the bowls of Aioli; that is THE real life!.

Tip: I make my aioli with the first garlic of the season, which is very tender and does not overpower.

Rouille - Spicy Mayonnaise

Rouille is a spicy mayonnaise and a sunny tablecloth!

Traditionally we eat it on crispy toasted bread floating in fish soup as Bouillabaisse. It adds a plus to almost any dish or sandwich.

My Rouille is really really bold!

Tip: find the perfect picnic spot along the French Riviera - Cote d'Azur then bite into that roasted chicken dipped in Rouille (or guzzle a spoon of that fish soup that you have brought with you...).

Now, close your eyes and let the subtle spices activate your senses, and breathe to the scenery.

Hollandaise Sauce

Hollandaise is another classic French sauce, even though its name refers to Holland!

It is a smooth and creamy sauce known as Mother Sauce.

It flavours vegetables, fish and egg dishes like the famous Eggs Benedict (A MUST, I love it!).

Tip: I always make my sauce with pure butter; it gives to it a rich buttery flavour and a mild tang from the lemon juice and seasonings.

Béarnaise Sauce

Béarnaise Sauce is a traditional sauce found all over France.

It is derived from Hollandaise Sauce.

It is hard to make it just right even though the ingredients are quite simple: butter, shallots, tarragon and vinegar.

This sauce is best-known as a classic accompaniment for grilled red meat, but it is just as wonderful with grilled fish and vegetable preparations.

It really makes anything taste good: You could dip potato chips in it!

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French Dressings

French Dressings are a type of sauces used to bind and flavour greens and/or vegetables.

French Dressings is a term used in Britain and the USA. In particular, to describe the most common salad dressing in France: the Vinaigrette, and its many variations.

The dressing is generally accepted to be a type of Vinaigrette but often includes different ingredients.

It seems one of the few countries where the term is not used is France, where we say Vinaigrette.

The term "French Dressings" became popular in Britain and the USA in the 1880s, and as salads increased in popularity, many different variations of the condiment emerged.

The dressing has appeared on US restaurant menus since 1899, if not earlier.

Interpretations

UK

The British French Dressings are more varied than the American versions, and the ingredients differ depending on taste.

Most common recipes contain olive oil (virgin always better!) and white or red wine vinegar or lemon juice as a base and can often contain salt, sugar, pepper, mustard, and garlic.

There is no set manufactured French dressing recipe and companies often make several different types of dressing to suit different tastes as stated earlier in this page.

United States

In the United States French Dressings are almost always a reddish orange colour (never true red, never white).

It is a homogenized, pureed, uniform viscous sauce with a tangy sweet flavour.

Unlike typical French Dressings - Vinaigrettes, there are no bits of herbs or spices floating in it as it should be.

It is generally made from vegetable oil (not quite right...), vinegar, ketchup (or tomato puree), water, paprika, other spices, and sweeteners, all thoroughly blended.

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Dressings and French Dressings - A Little Bit of History

Using oil and vinegar to dress greens and vegetables dates to Babylonian times, some 2,000 years ago.

The word salad can be traced to the ancient Romans who sprinkled salt on grasses and herbs, calling it herba salata.

It was not long before Roman and Greek cooks experimented with combinations of olive oil, vinegar, and salt, then adding wine, honey, and a fermented fish sauce known as garum.

This “sauce” was made by soaking the intestines and other pieces of mackerel, salmon, sardines, and shad in brine and herbs.

In Europe, the Kings and Queens loved salads with royal chefs mixing together as many as thirty-five ingredients.

Henry IV of England was known to prefer a bowl of sliced new potatoes and sardines splashed with herb dressing.

For Mary, Queen of Scots, it was lettuce, boiled celery root, truffles, chervil, and hard-cooked eggs in a mustard dressing.

Salad dressings were made from scratch in home kitchens until the turn of the nineteenth century when restaurant owners began packaging and selling their own dressings.

One of the first was Joe Marzetti, owner of a Columbus, Ohio, restaurant.

In 1919, Marzetti began to bottle a variety of dressings from old country recipes including French dressings recipes.

The Kraft Cheese Company entered the salad dressing industry in 1925; its first flavours were French Dressings with oil and vinegar-based flavoured with tomato and paprika.

By the end of the 20th century, over 60 million gallons (227 million litres) of salad dressings were sold in the United States.

The most popular flavour by far was ranch dressing.

The original brand, Hidden Valley Ranch, was created by Steve Henson who devised the recipe as a dry mix to be blended with mayonnaise and buttermilk.

Henson and his wife Gayle served it at their California dude ranch, called the Hidden Valley Guest Ranch, in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.

Guests reported that the dressing was so popular, they often poured it on steaks and ice cream as well as on salads.

Guests began to request jars of the dressing to take home with them.

When one man wanted three hundred jars to take back to Hawaii, Henson offered to provide him with enough packages of the dried mixture instead.

This led to a very lucrative mail order business.

The family eventually sold the business, which is now owned by Clorex. Raw Materials.

The primary ingredient in salad dressing is oil. In the United States, soybean oil is the most common type used in the production of salad dressings.

Olive, peanut, and sunflower oils may also be used.

Stabilizers and thickeners, such as modified food starch, are mixed with the oil.

The thickeners develop viscosity and protective colloid characteristics that help to prevent the breakdown of the blend during the various processing steps.

Other food ingredients are added depending on the type of dressing, including any or all of the following: eggs, vinegar, salt, honey,

Sugar, spices and herbs, tomato, vegetable bits, sherry, and lemon or lime juice and more.

A large sub-industry is involved in the processing of these ingredients.

Herbs and vegetables are usually blast-frozen and cut into pieces or reduced to flakes.

Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is a food additive developed in the early 1900’s from seaweed.

Today in the United States, MSG is extracted from the gluten of cereals.

It is used in variety of foods, including salad dressings, to enhance flavour.

However, the increases of allergic reactions experienced by consumers have caused some processors to cease using it.

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Dressing Designs

The dressing industry is constantly creating new and so-called improved flavours.

Low fat and non-fat varieties are of particular interest to the consumer.

The larger companies have food laboratories on site.

Smaller companies and start-up companies often rely on research conducted by university food science institutes.

BELIEVE ME, French Dressings made with the right and fresh ingredients and adequate quantities have no equal.

They are healthy and tasty with any vegetable, salad or other.

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French Dressings and Dips from the French Riviera - Cote d'Azur

Tapenade - Olive Spread

We have the habit of just dropping by unannounced.

Nobody minds, it is an opportunity to share a moment.

There is always food but no pressure to prepare anything.

Open a bottle of wine and a jar of tapenade spread it on crispy bread, perhaps with a layer of goat cheese...

Our Tapenade is made with black olives (some use green olives, with blacks olives it is definitely better!), virgin olive oil, capers, anchovies and fresh Provencal herbs.

With this olive spread, prepared on the French Riviera, you can experience Provence anytime, and anywhere.

Citrus Vinaigrette

Lemon makes nice French Dressings, but lemon and orange together often work even better.

Orange and lemon can ignite anything you put them on from steamed fish to fruit salad.

Both sweet and subtle they make a wonderful contrast with bold salad ingredients like capers, chives, and parmesan.

Dijon Mustard Vinaigrette

Dijon Mustard gets its name from the city of Dijon in France.

The original Dijon taste was born when someone had the idea to replace the vinegar normally used in the mustard recipe with the sour juice of unripe grapes.

This makes mustard that is far less acidic, with flavours that can range from mild to hot.

The Dijon mustard in our French Dressing - Vinaigrette has a bite to it that perks up green salads, potato salads and pasta salads.

It has a way of turning a regular sandwich into something ingenious!

Dijon Old-fashioned Mustard Vinaigrette

In old-fashioned mustard, mustard seeds are mixed in whole, without grinding.

This mustard is milder than Dijon and has a pleasant grainy sunflowers lavender house French Riviera and Provence texture which, on meat or vegetables, somehow makes you feel you are eating something sophisticated, even if it is just a carrot!

Our vinaigrette with whole grain mustard gives its best with chicken salads, and poured over roasted green beans or crab cakes.

Fig Balsamic Vinaigrette

Look at a fig, a ripe fig ready to surrender its sweet purple treasure to your palate.

Isn't the fig one of nature’s greatest successes in the fruit department?

And consider balsamic vinaigrette.

Isn't that one of man's greatest successes in the seasoning department?

Bring these two sweet lovers together and you have a perfect marriage.

Crisp salads and vegetables will enjoy mixing with this lucky vinaigrette.

Sliced tomatoes, perhaps with goat cheese, await their “rendez-vous” with balsamic and fig!

Garlic Vinaigrette

Provencal French Cuisine uses garlic with just about everything.

Garlic uplifts all vegetables.

It doesn't care whether they are raw, sautéed or steamed!

Our local garlic vinaigrette will gratify lovers of garlic.

It does its hard work all over the salad kingdom, and when it is done, it loves to come home to the classic Caesar Salad.

Caramelized Onions - Confit Oignons

Try this delicious Oignons Confits - Caramelized Onions which is intensely flavoured vegetable side dish, and a favourite served with grilled chicken or lamb chops.

This dip can also make a wonderful sort of French Dressings (I use s here as you can use different kind of onions) may be served hot or at room temperature as a relish with roasts and fowl.

It will keep refrigerated for several days.

For the Couscous (Yes, Couscous is very common on the French Riviera - Cote d'Azur!) we add sultanas to cook with the onions.

Anchoïade - Anchovie Paste

Anchoïade is a sweet, salty, pounded paste similar to Tapenade, but with more garlic and virgin olive oil and less (or no) olives.

It is usually served with a mixed platter of raw and cooked vegetables, including artichokes.

It comes from my area the French Riviera and is best eaten simply on crispy toast.

Tip: use a pestle and mortar if you can, it gives a much more interesting and less homogenised flavour than the purée made in a blender.

I hope you enjoyed this page dedicated to the French Sauces - Stocks - Dips and French Dressings!