Mastering Sauces: The Home Cook's Guide to New Techniques for Fresh Flavors

by Susan Volland

Overview

The definitive cookbook on contemporary sauces that highlights fresh flavors and updated classics.

Finally, a cookbook on sauces that is fresh, vibrant, and alive. In Mastering Sauces, Susan Volland veers away from traditional lesson plans and presents sauce-making in a whole new way. She focuses on how great cooks all over the world make sauces with impromptu élan—they splash and drizzle, slather and douse. Great sauces are made by following three fundamental principles: Maximize Flavor, Manipulate Texture, and Season Confidently. Armed with these principles, you can make any sauce your way.

In addition to over 150 recipes that reflect today’s tastes for seasonal produce, international ingredients, and alternative dietary choices, there are dozens of tips and tables suggesting ways to adapt and customize sauces. There are innovative Meatless Reductions, international Sauces That Start with a Can of Diced Tomatoes, and an Endlessly Adaptable Stir-Fry Sauce. Don’t have time to make stock? Brew a quick “Mock Stock” or savory infusion. Not eating meat? Avoiding wheat? Check out the chapter called Respect Your Mother, where, alongside the classics, there are tantalizing recipes for Vegan Corn “Hollandaise” (pictured on the cover), Soy Cream Sauce, and Eggless Mayo.

In a conversational and very readable style, Volland teaches the “whys” and “hows” of sauce-making so cooks can better understand their ingredients to create the dish they want. And because she knows that even the best cooks have off-nights, she finishes with a list of Remedies for Faltering Sauces.

Mastering Sauces is the go-to resource for all cooks, all tastes, and all diets.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393241853
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	10/26/2015
Pages:	496
Sales rank:	455,670
Product dimensions:	10.10(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

Susan Volland is a classically trained chef and cookbook collaborator based in Seattle. She is the author of Searing Inspiration and Mastering Sauces, named a Best Cookbook of the Year by the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune.

Editorial Reviews

05/04/2015
In Volland’s fourth book (after Green Black Red), she tackles the taxing art of making sauces, an endeavor that requires confidence and skill, a delicate hand, and a discerning palate. She groups sauces by flavor and texture, getting deep into specifics—which thickeners to use, how to create specific flavors using particular seasonings—and then applying those lessons throughout the book using practical examples. The extensive list of recipes includes the classic French sauces such as jus and béchamel, as well as lots of sauces from all over the globe, including Arkansas Chocolate Gravy and Hara Masala (Indian Green Spice Base). Volland also advises on using the correct pot for each sauce so as to risk the, say, burning the contents. This book should be added to the list of necessary equipment for making sauces, right after the whisk and double boiler. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Susan Volland gives home cooks the confidence and knowledge not only to make sauces, but also to create their own. This book is an important addition to every kitchen library."

Jennifer McLagan

"From the chef’s perspective, a dish isn’t finished until you sauce it. The recipes in this book—focused and sensuous—are right in tune with the way we eat today. So don’t cover up that pristine fillet of wild salmon or those fresh, fat spears of local asparagus you so carefully sourced with a tone-deaf sauce. Try a recipe from this book and elevate your home cooking from ordinary to extraordinary."

Tom Douglas

"The bible of successful sauce making."

Foodepedia - Nick Harman

"In this penetrating volume, the reader will learn sauces ranging from hollandaise to Thai peanut sauce—Mastering Sauces is a must-buy, and an essential one, for any serious cook."

James Peterson

"Smart and wide-ranging, with terrific pages of tips and variations."

Bonnie Benwick

"Volland's intent is to get you comfortable with the elements of a good sauce, then set you free in your kitchen. … The book is not about the five French mother sauces; oh, they're here, but much more ink in the 450-plus pages is spent on how we cook today, from updating those classics to her endlessly adaptable stir-fry sauce to smart things to do with canned tomatoes."

Chicago Tribune - Joe Gray

07/01/2015
Volland is a trained chef who served as an editorial assistant for the six-book masterwork Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking. Here she provides thoughtful and in-depth coverage of modern sauce-making fundamentals, teaching readers to maximize flavor, season confidently, and navigate cooking vocabulary (they'll know when their sauce is mucilaginous). Discussing cooking temperatures, reduction times, thickening agents, and troubleshooting tips, Volland expertly answers the technical and scientific questions most readers will have. VERDICT This is an excellent culinary reference with a thoroughness that recalls titles such as Shirley Corriher's Cookwise and Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg's The Flavor Bible. Highly recommended, along with Martha Holmberg's Modern Sauces.

Library Journal

"Mastering Sauces will not only give you the ability to make exquisite sauces, but will gently guide you through the science behind the sauce."

Shirley O. Corriher

"Susan Volland’s Mastering Sauces is a tremendous resource with a profound understanding of the home cook. Her encyclopedic knowledge and instinct for simple instruction make it a bookshelf staple."

Wylie Dufresne

"Susan Volland combines science, hedonism, and common sense in this groundbreaking book. So much more than a cookbook, Mastering Sauces is a treatise on flavor, taste, and texture for the twenty-first century."

Molly Stevens

"Susan’s contributions to The Cooking Lab were invaluable. Now she’s written a comprehensive guide to learning the fundamentals of sauce-making, taking home cooks on a tour of versatile techniques and international flavors."

Nathan Myhrvold

"A smart, lucid, and beautifully written manual for making glorious sauces from around the world. It will educate and inspire both learned sauciers and novices alike."

James Oseland