Having Fun with Sauces

People often ask me what I cook, i.e. what is my favorite type or nationality of food that I cook. The truth is I cook just about anything and I eat almost all foods -- I draw the line at insects and beets (never have been able to stomach beets in any form, though they have always looked good to me). However there are types of cooking that I am better at than others. For example: I seem to have a knack for curries made from scratch (e.g. Indian or Thai) but I have never felt particularly great at Chinese cooking, in spite of lots of good examples set for me by Chinese friends. But if I give a truly honest answer, I love and am fascinated by the whole concept and realm of making sauces.

Now as an example of my irreverence -- I am not a purist about most things. I don't follow strict guidelines to make a Sauce Robert or Sauce Nantua or even a Beurre Blanc. Simply put, I would never make it through the Cordon Bleu school because I would tend to 'do it my way.' I would find it difficult; well, probably impossible, to learn to chop onions or carrots in a precise manner, or perhaps better said, 'do it their way.'

ButI do know how to make sauces and I love to experiment with sauces. So in today's blog I'll share with you a recent simple meal with an experimental sauce.

A couple of day's ago I had some close friends stop over briefly and I offered to cook dinner. One of the local markets had some very nice fresh Steelhead (Rainbow Trout) filets for sale so I picked up two pounds of these for dinner. As soon as I had seen the filets I started to think sauces.

My goal for this dinner was to grill the steelhead over charcoal (yes, I am a bit of a purist about using the real thing, but one can certainly use a gas grill), and then to create a light sauce that added some nice flavor without overpowering the filets. If you are not familiar with rainbow trout -- it is somewhat like fresh-caught salmon, and depending upon the type of salmon, trout tends to be a somewhat/slightly denser fish. The only prep for the fish was to rinse the filets and sprinkle lightly with some white pepper.

First: keys to cooking fish on the grill

Obviously it does depend on the type of fish, but generally speaking 90% of the time I grill with indirect heat -- meaning, I put the coals on opposite sides of the grill and the fish/meat/etc. in the middle. I tend to use low to medium heat to cook things slowly. Always watch fish carefully, it is key to good fish that it doesn't overcook. 'Just done' is ideal, especially with the slightly denser, drier nature of rainbow trout. Plus, if you like a slight smokey flavor, add a touch (I used three small slivers) of mesquite (hickory, etc.) chips at the beginning of the cooking. I find smoking a very delicate business, especially with fish, and people's palates differ on this, so in some ways you have to go with what you like and hope everyone agrees with the end result. I tend toward the lighter side and try to aim for that. BTW there is no need to brine if you smoke this way, though you certainly can and using different brines is a good way to experiment with how the fish turns out.

To the sauce:

Lately I have been pondering the wonderful flavor of the 'roux.' A staple in New Orleans or Cajun cooking, making a roux is all about browing butter and flour to alter/add to the flavor in the dish in which it is used. Essentially what you do in making a roux is to brown the butter and flour (often with the addition of other spices) to whatever degree you wish. This brings a 'nutty' or 'browned' flavor to the butter mixture. How dark your roux is affects the flavor of your dish or sauce differently. Some people like light brown to medium rouxs, others a rich dark roux that may even border on blackening.

So I have experimented with using 'browned butter' in other sauces. I like the flavor and it expands the possibilities of your sauces. For the trout sauce, I started with about 3 tablespoons of butter in a frying/saute pan.

[BTW I almost never use measuring cups, measuring spoons, etc. I have developed (ask my kids -- they have seen me numerous times prove an exact measure in my hand by dumping it into a teaspoon measure or tablespoon measure) the ability to estimate almost precisely amounts of things -- I use the palm of my hand for small quantities and 'dump' from containers for larger quantities (I know, I know, completely irreverent!).] But for reproduction purposes in this blog I will try to give at least a fair estimate of quantities I use. However, variation is the spice of life and food, and virtually nothing is set in cement. Don't take my quantities as verbatim -- create!

I began to brown the butter over medium-high heat and once it started to develop some color I added two dashes (maybe an eighth of a teaspoon) of flour to add to the browning effect. I did NOT want to add enough flour that the sauce would thicken. I wanted a sauce that would flow over and around the filets. Once I had a medium brown tinge, I added the juice from one freshly squeezed lemon, turned the butter to low and shuffled the pan half off the burner to wait the fish. )It's not done yet, but I thought I would briefly describe the rest of the meal.

I decided to make a spinach souffle to accompany and to use a large bowl of left-over angel-hair pasta as well to finish off the dinner. I'm not going to describe making a souffle in detail here, but you can use any basic souffle recipe as a starting point. Here are the essentials: medium chop 6-8 ounces of fresh spinach; make a one cup or so white sauce; grate a cup of Manchego (or other flavorful) cheese and a teaspoon or so of lemon peel; I used five egg whites and three of the yolks; the yolks helped to thicken the white sauce further; then grated cheese and lemon zest was added; finally the spinach; fold in part of beaten egg whites; then add rest; cook in buttered souffle dish at 350 until set and browned nicely on top.

Noodles: to refresh the noodles I brought some water to a boil, dropped the noodles in for a minute, and drained. I made a sauce with olive oil (we'll talk about oils and such in another blog); lots of freshly finely chopped garlic -- about three tablespoons (by hand -- another purist thing of mine that we'll discuss further on other blogs); chopped parsley and the green part of green onions (about 3-4 tablespoons each), saute briefly and toss with pasta. Voila! I did all of this in a wok -- a convenient size and shape for this type of work.

As this all came together and the souffle neared completion, I finished the sauce for the fish. I reheated the butter to a medium-high temperature and then added another tablespoon or so of fresh lemon, tossed in one-third of a medium cucumber finely chopped (a nice fresh taste for the fish). Immediately removed from the heat and added the two yolks (extra from the souffle) fried and chopped to finish off. Spread sauce over fish and serve. Lovely!

What I learned and had fun with: always creating from ideas and trying them out to see how they work. 'Cooking' cucumbers is unusual at best, but I tried it here, and it worked. Plus the browning of butter added a nice touch to the sauce. Another idea -- add a touch of white-wine vinegar at the end for a tangy flavor.

Enjoy!

Joe Koob