I don’t think anyone needs to explain how transforming any dish is, accompanied by the right sauce. A tasty sauce is what at all times separated a good cook from a very good one.
The only reason we don’t make a new homemade sauce every day is the extra fuss – time, effort, dirty dishes … Well, today your favorite online food publication will tell you how to make a simple and delicious sauce at home for 5-10 minutes – without unnecessary fuss and dirty dishes. It will be about what is called “sauce in a pan” – a simple and aromatic sauce that can and should be prepared every time after you have fried something. Pork chops, chicken and duck breasts, schnitzels, boneless patties, steaks, ribs and fish are prime candidates to serve with this sauce, but you can also make a sauce in a skillet for fried vegetables, tofu, or grilled meats. that has been pre-fried. Of course, different sauces are suitable for different dishes, but the principle of their preparation is always the same and involves a few simple steps.
1. Take a frying pan
So let’s say you’ve just cooked pork steaks or toasted juicy chicken breasts. Wrap them in foil and set aside in a warm place – in these 5 minutes the juices will be distributed inside the meat, so that it will turn out to be more tender and juicy – and make the sauce yourself. Add a little fresh oil to the skillet or, on the contrary, drain off excess fat so that only a thin film of oil covers the bottom of the pan, and return it to the fire. Do you reach out first to wipe the pan to remove the burnt pieces? No need, they are not destined for the last role in our plan!
2. Fry onions (and not only)
Add finely chopped onion and sauté over medium heat. Traditionally, shallots are used for this, but I like to add a couple of chopped garlic cloves along with it. In addition to onions and garlic, you can make a sauce using finely chopped herbs, grated ginger and other aromatic vegetables, as well as spices – ground chili, mustard seeds, coriander, crushed black pepper, and so on. Fry the whole thing for 2-3 minutes, remembering to stir, until the vegetables are soft. Basically, you can skip this step, but it will give your sauce a deeper flavor, so it’s best not to neglect it.
3. Add liquid
This can be a glass of wine, half a glass of wine + half a glass of broth, a glass of broth, if for some reason you do not want to use alcohol, or any other liquid, the taste and aroma of which will increase as it boils (in other words, this focus will not work). It is good to first pour a couple of tablespoons of brandy on the fried onions, let them evaporate, and only then add wine, the idea of adding a sprig of thyme or other aromatic herbs will be no less successful – in a word, at this stage it is also worth showing your imagination.
After adding the liquid, turn the heat up to high, grab a spatula in your hand and rub the bottom of the pan well, scraping off the small pieces that adhered to the bottom when you fried meat in the pan. These chunks contain an explosive concentrate of taste, and in the few minutes while the sauce is boiling down, they will give it a lot of their aromas. Bring the liquid in a skillet to a boil and boil it about half, which will take another 3-4 minutes.
4. Add oil
Well, our sauce is almost ready. Remove the skillet from heat, add a few chunks of cold butter and stir vigorously in the hot sauce until completely dissolved. This technique serves several purposes at once.
Firstly, in the process of slow melting of the butter, it will be whipped with the liquid into a kind of emulsion, so that ideally, the sauce will acquire the consistency of liquid sour cream at the exit (however, do not hope that you will succeed the first time).
Secondly, the oil will add smoothness and gloss to the sauce.
Thirdly, as a result of intensive mixing, the sauce will have another chance to take the maximum taste from its solid ingredients.
At the end of all the manipulations, the sauce can and should be tried, if necessary, salt, pepper, sprinkle with lemon juice – in general, bring to mind. After that, the sauce, if the main course is not yet ready, must be kept warm, but do not bring it to a boil, otherwise the emulsion will immediately stratify. Instead of butter, cream is sometimes added at the end for the same purpose – to thicken the sauce.
5. Strain the sauce
In principle, this step can be skipped, and many do so, but it seems to me that fried onions, spices and other solid particles, which have already given the sauce their taste and aroma, have nothing else to do in it, so I filter the sauce through fine sieve just before serving.
By the way, serving such an easy way should not be complicated either: of course, you can get a silver gravy boat from the shelf – but it’s easier and more correct to just pour sauce on your steak or chop right on the plate. Well, that doesn’t sound so difficult, right? Of course, if you strictly follow the instructions set out above, it will not be easy to keep within 5 minutes, but 7-8 minutes for making the sauce will be enough for you – and while the wine or broth is boiling down, you will have time to fill the salad, knead the puree, set the table and turn a regular dinner weekday into something memorable.
I hope this article was useful to you, and I, as always, will be glad to questions and valuable comments in the comments.