Writing a food column often leads one to make huge assumptions about the people who read food columns. You assume it is the same handful of people each week and that by now they know you and know your form. What you forget is that the person reading might not be a cook or is just learning to cook perhaps or developing an interest in food. I was reminded of this recently when a very nice customer at my shop remarked that she had only recently found my column in the paper and now reads it weekly. However she also added that cooking has become her new hobby. While this lady is quite mature she explained that she worked outside the home for many years and so never had a great interest in cooking. Having taken early retirement she had discovered her passion for cooking but seemed to be coming to it quite late in life. Actually it’s never too late, and taking up a hobby like cooking is relatively safe at any age. Now she could have discovered a passion for pole dancing and that perhaps would have been out of bounds, but the culinary arts welcome all and have no upper age limit as long as you are physically able to use the equipment.
Thinking about all the people out there who are only really discovering home cooking for the first time I felt it would be useful every now and again to visit and revisit the pillars of home cooking. These are the things that regular cooks have mastered and there is an assumption that everyone can do it, which is often a misconception. So this week I have chosen to look at a simple white sauce and how it can be flavoured.
Plain white sauce is a ‘must learn’ for any cook as it forms the basis of so many family favourite recipes. I believe there are two common mistakes with white sauce. One is that if the flour is not left to cook properly before you add the liquid or you add too much flour it will, without a doubt, produce an odd floury taste in the overall sauce. The other common mistake is to just use cold milk, without heating it and infusing a little bayleaf or peppercorn into it at the start. Now I know this is a little fiddly and adds time to the process, but it is worth it for overall flavour. Also hot milk is absorbed more quickly and easily into the roux so you are ensuring a smoother sauce. A ‘roux’ is the cooked flour and butter mixture at the start. By cooking the flour and butter together we burst the starch grains in the flour and again this allows the liquid to be absorbed. It is also important to allow the sauce to simmer as this will take away any floury taste and helps give the sauce a glossy finish. Always use plain flour when making a white sauce as you may get lumps with self raising flour and while I tend to have salted butter to hand most of the time, if possible I use unsalted butter. Finally although my recipe says to leave the bay leaf, shallot and peppercorns infuse in the milk for 10 minutes, obviously longer infusing time adds more flavour.
So my basic white sauce recipe is this: 1 bay leaf, 1 shallot, 6 peppercorns, ¾ Pint of Milk, 2 oz of butter and 2 oz of plain flour. Obviously full fat milk will give you the creamiest flavour, but if you want to reduce the fat then use semi skimmed or try half milk half chicken stock, but more about that later. My first job is to infuse the milk. Tear the bay leaf to release the flavour and put it in a pot. Cut the shallot in half and along with the peppercorns add them to the pot. Pour over the milk and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and let the whole thing simmer for about 90 seconds. Remove the milk from the heat – cover the pot and leave to infuse for at least 10 minutes. Strain the liquid into a measuring jug ready for the sauce. Now melt the butter in a heavy based pot over a medium heat until it has melted completely. Put in the flour and lifting off the heat slightly, stir well with a wooden spoon combining the flour and butter, then put back on the heat and cook, stirring all the time, for about 2 minutes. This buttery coloured, fluffy textured lump is called a roux. Reduce the heat and start pouring the warm milk, little by little, into the roux. Keep stirring until the roux has absorbed the milk and then add some more. Once all the milk is in simmer, stirring all the time, for about 5 minutes to make a smooth sauce. Season the sauce with salt and pepper and simmer gently for another minute or so.
With the basic white sauce made it can become the perfect vehicle for a myriad of flavours. For a cheese sauce for pasta bakes or a cauliflower cheese I might add about 120g of cheddar cheese and a dollop of Dijon mustard to the quantity above. You could fry a finely chopped onion in the butter before adding the flour and then add chopped parsley to finish. Wholegrain mustard stirred through a white sauce works very well with fish. And if you are using this with chicken and you are really concerned about the calories, you could, as suggested earlier, use half milk and half chicken stock instead.
Along with a pouring sauce, white sauce is a must with pasta dishes such as lasagne or macaroni cheese. Indeed many vegetarian vegetable bakes benefit from a creamy white sauce and of course fish also. It has often been used to transform leftover meat into a seemingly whole new meal for the next day. Master the basic white sauce and then play around with the flavours; it’s a great cooks’ skill to have up your sleeve.
This post was written by me, Pat Whelan, owner of James Whelan Butchers and a passionate advocate of local artisan food. My family have been producing quality Irish Angus beef for generations using a traditional dry aging process. This tradition is one that I continue to practice at our abattoir on our family farm in Garrentemple, Clonmel. These posts aim to impart some of the wisdom to readers and help them get the best out of the meat they eat! Our meat is available online here! I welcome your feedback to [email protected]
We hope you enjoyed reading this post by Pat Whelan of James Whelan Butchers. Pat is a 5th generation butcher, cook book author and the director of James Whelan Butchers with shops in Clonmel, the Avoca Handweavers Rathcoole and Kilmacanogue, Dunnes Stores Cornelscourt, Rathmines and Swords in Dublin. Sign up to our newsletter for more updates from James Whelan Butchers
Tags: cauliflower, foodie articles, James Whelan Butchers, Pat Whelan, white sauce
