Sauces:Formulating Ladles of Flavor

May 2001

Sauces: Formulating Ladles of FlavorBy Donna BerryContributing Editor

A growing number of consumers relying on some form of foodservice to feed the family at dinnertime makes quality and presentation increasingly important in meal selection. After all, when spending additional money to take the family out to dinner, or even to bring take-out home, it should be money well spent. And its the sauce that can make the meal stand out from the competition.The rigors of todays foodservice operations, especially establishments that focus on meals-to-go, make it difficult to prepare consumer-desired sauces from scratch. Additionally, an operator may choose to take the extra steps to turn a ready-made base into a signature sauce. In either case, various ready-made options and ingredients are available to operators.All about tasteJames Peterson, author of Sauces, the 1991 James Beard Foundation Cookbook of the Year, says, Because sauces are often more intensely flavored than the foods they accompany, they must be prepared with the best available ingredients. Peterson, a chemist by degree, understands that there is science to making good-tasting, high-quality sauces, the sauces todays foodservice consumers demand. It does not matter if its the gravy on mashed potatoes from a chicken franchise; the cheese for fries from a neighborhood hot-dog stand; marinara or Alfredo at a top-notch Italian bistro; hollandaise at a French café; or sweet and sour at a Thai joint it must taste and look good. To accomplish this, product designers from chefs to manufacturing R&D groups can rely on a number of flavorful ingredients.Adding umami to the menuMany of todays unique savory and cheese sauces are coming to fruition with the help of an ingredient dating back some 2,000-plus years soy sauce. Naturally brewed soy sauce is transparent and delicately colored. It has a subtly balanced flavor and aroma that brings out the flavors of other foods, making it a secret sauce ingredient for many cooks. It also has more than 285 flavor components and is one of the flavors behind the fifth basic flavor, umami. (The first four basics are bitter, salty, sour and sweet.) The term umami originates in Japan and translates to savory or brothy. The common denominator of umami ingredients is a high concentration of specific amino acids, which explains why amino-acid-rich soy sauce is the most widely used umami ingredient. Some call it Asian-inspired, others call it Pan-Pacific, according to Kikkoman International Inc., San Francisco; however, its use as a flavor enhancer goes far beyond Asian cuisines, crossing culinary boundaries to heighten the flavors of Latin, Mediterranean and even mainstream American sauces. Adding soy sauce to non-Asian sauces is an easy way for cooks to build in this fifth flavor, making sauces taste richer and more fully rounded. Also, it provides a rich color without adding calories.Oftentimes, we associate savory sauces with meat dishes; however, soy combined with citrus ingredients makes a light-colored, low-viscosity sauce that boasts a lot of flavor and complements many fish entrées. After all, the first rule of seafood is to keep it simple.In the same ingredients family, teriyaki, with its sweet-savory flavor, is appearing on more and more U.S. menus. It is used like soy sauce and is the inspiration for jerk cooking sauces. Teriyaki was originally a simple combination of soy sauce and mirin, a sweet rice wine. Japanese immigrants who settled in Hawaii began adding tropical ingredients like pineapple juice, ginger and brown sugar, which are used in most commercially prepared teriyaki sauces today. Both soy and teriyaki sauces can be used as-is. They also can act as a base to which other ingredients are added, or vice versa, as a flavor-boosting ingredient to other sauce bases. Soy and teriyaki sauces are those magic ingredients that even only basic-trained foodservice operators use to turn a ready-made sauce into a signature delight. In consumers eyes, this gives an edge to a menu, helping a foodservice operation set itself apart from the competition.The truth behind sauce and gravySauces, in a ready-to-use form, begin with a liquid component, to which other flavoring ingredients and thickening agents are added.Often, stocks form the basis of sauces. Stock, a flavorful extract made by cooking meat, fish or vegetables in water or broth, supplies or augments the nutritive and savory components released by meat, fish or vegetables during cooking. Sauce becomes gravy when the actual juices, the jus, from any cooked animal meat are thickened. In the culinary world, the ingredient used to thicken liquids is referred to as a liaison. Historically, liaisons had been used to get sauces to cling to foods they accompanied, making the food easier to eat with the hands. (This was before forks and knives had made their way into the dining experience.) This still remains one of the primary reasons for thickening a liquid; another is to provide concentrated flavor and a sense of richness. Today, however, depending on the application, many consumers prefer sauces that are not too thick or rich, which to them equates to higher calories and more fat. This, however, is not necessarily the case. Calories and fat contribution vary by the liaison used. Indeed, cream, butter and egg yolks provide extra richness and calories, but most industrial starches add no fat and few calories, and furnish a lot of thickening power. Starch thickens a sauce in two ways. First, the starch physically adds solids to the liquid, which, therefore, lowers the ratio of water to solids, thus increasing viscosity. But more importantly, the starch granules trap water molecules and, in the process, reduce the amount of free-flowing water in the sauce. Starch ingredients vary in many ways, from their ability to withstand steam table and freeze/thawing abuse to being instant or cook-up, cold-water or hot-water dispersible.Body countsWith more consumers relying on some form of foodservice to feed their families, there is a trend amongst foodservice operators to use higher-quality ingredients in order to bring value to their offerings. Starch is one of those ingredients that can make a big difference. When selecting a starch, it is important to consider the desired product viscosity, pH and serving temperature. Another important issue is preparation and handling conditions, which, in many foodservice operations, becomes the primary focus due to the common practice of freezing unused portions of prepared sauce for future use even after a six-hour stint on the steam table.Foodservice operators must know if a sauce can maintain its viscosity over its entire hold-time on a steam table, says Celeste Sullivan, senior applications scientist, Grain Processing Corp., Muscatine, IA. One of our unique cook-up, modified corn starches has been shown to withstand extensive abuse on the steam table, even combined with a freeze/thaw cycle.These cross-linked and substituted modified starches gelatinize earlier than most cook-up starches and their low gelatinization temperatures help attain maximum viscosity with minimal thermal input. Sullivan explains that its critical for starch granules to maintain integrity to hold water. If granules begin to rupture, they can no longer hold water and syneresis occurs in the finished product, she says. Also, the more free-standing water, the easier for the sauce to experience moisture loss. This creates a too-thick sauce and often an undesirable skin forms on the surface of the sauce in its holding container on the steam table.Standing sauces develop a skin when moisture flashes off. Its basically dehydration at the surface, explains Janet Carver, food scientist, National Starch and Chemical Co., Bridgewater, NJ. However, as important as steam-table stability is, so is cold-storage stability, and many foodservice professionals may want to consider techniques for improving cold-storage stability. Modified food starches, though they cost more than traditional cornstarch, reduce the amount of waste with leftovers. Indeed, unmodified cornstarch and wheat flours thicken well, at a very low cost, but their ability to withstand steam-table and freeze/thaw abuse is another issue. Depending upon the operation, the cost savings with using traditional grain-based thickeners, as compared to a modified starch, does not pan out in the end, if large volumes of product are lost at the end of the day. Operators must also factor in that you can use less of these specialty modified starches, as compared to traditional thickeners, adds Bob Kendall, business manager, National Starch. And they can replace more expensive ingredients like milkfat, while still producing a high-quality sauce with great mouthfeel, sheen and lubricity.When speed is of utmost importance, it is also possible to use instant, cold-water-swelling starches made from waxy maize to thicken a sauce, explains Kendall. These types of starches reduce preparation time in the kitchen and also are suitable for dry sauce mixes, which simply require the addition of water and microwaveable sauces. In addition to starch, adding maltodextrins to a thickening system further enhances viscosity and mouthfeel. Maltodextrins maintain sauce clarity and sheen, while creating a fatty mouthfeel without the calories. They also are recognized for enhancing cling, an attribute every quality sauce wants to possess. Grain-based thickeners, especially the modified starches, as well as maltodextrin, have application in a wide variety of sauce types and forms. The term types refers to an endless array of tomato-based sauces, including spicy Creole; marinara and barbecue; gravies, such as chicken, beef and pork; cheese-based sauces, such as those for macaroni and cheese, nachos and fettuccini; and even sweet and sour or hoisin sauce for stir-fry. The term forms refers to dry, frozen, refrigerated and retort, as well as ready-to-use bases and concentrates.The many forms of sauceFor quick preparation, operators may want to turn to a sauce mix. Dry-powder sauces provide foodservice operators with the benefit of a long shelf life at ambient temperature, explains Betty Dawson, associate technology principal, Kraft Food Ingredients (KFI), Memphis, TN. Dry sauce mixes simply require reconstitution at the time of use. With powdered cheese sauces, however, they usually possess cooked flavor notes and often lack authentic texture, she adds.Frozen and retort sauces also offer long shelf lives. Like dry-powder sauces, retort sauces can be stored at ambient temperature, but with the retort process, it is difficult to get strong, clean flavors due to high-heat processing, says Dawson. Theres also pronounced cooked notes in retort sauces.Refrigerated and frozen sauces are ideal for foodservice operators striving for high-quality sauces that create a distinctive edge, but who also do not want to worry about mixing starches in the kitchen. The primary reason for choosing one or the other comes down to the establishments available freezer or refrigerator storage space. Frozen sauces have a good, clean flavor delivery system, says Dawson, as do refrigerated sauces. Their shelf life is just shorter.In all forms of cheese sauce, the sauce must maintain clean cheese notes throughout its duration on the steam table. This needs to be accounted for in the original formulation or by additions when customizing the final preparation, Dawson adds. Specialized-ingredient cheese products that are designed to deliver a high-flavor impact tend to be more tolerant of heat. It also is common to add dairy enhancers and flavors to the sauce.Fully or partially prepared sauces provide foodservice operators with a starting point when developing customized sauces no matter what their form, she contiunes. They shorten preparation time considerably. The Nestle Foodservice Division, Solon, OH, offers foodservice operators refrigerated pastes that the company emphasizes are no-cook systems that produce gravies and sauces in minutes. The company explains that home-style gravies and sauces can be made in three easy steps: First, bring the water to a rapid boil; turn off heat. Secondly, immediately add the sauce concentrate. Finally, mix with a wire whisk until the sauce is smooth and thickened. The benefits of using concentrated sauces include authentic flavor, convenience, reduced preparation time (and hence reduced labor costs), as well as reduced waste due to controlled volumes of sauce made in minimal time. Types of sauce concentrates range from beef au jus to pork gravy, and Alfredo to hollandaise. It is during step three when chefs can add those special ingredients to create a signature sauce. Customization is only limited by the imagination and available time, says KFIs Dawson.

Donna Berry, president of Chicago-based Dairy & Food Communications Inc., a network of professionals in business-to-business technical and trade communications, has been writing about product development and marketing for eight years. Prior to that, she worked for Kraft Foods in the natural cheese division. Donna has a B.S. in food science from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. She can be reached at [email protected].

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