White Sauce

If there is anything that people have bugged me to post more than a red sauce recipe, it's one for a white sauce. White sauce is rich, creamy, and has a wonderful mild flavor that makes you feel like you're eating comfort food, even the first time you eat it.

This is a very basic white sauce, and allows you to make innumerable modifications, resulting in many different kinds of sauces. You can even use this sauce as a base for a wonderful clam chowder. There are two quick and easy ways to modify this sauce for very different results: modify the fat and modify the seasonings. Try using bacon grease instead of butter and adding in some crunchy, crumbled bacon bits. Or put in some steamed vegetables, like cauliflower, broccoli, yellow summer squash, and carrots to make a nice pasta primavera. I like it with a generous helping of white pepper. Try some Marsala wine, instead of white. There are lots of good possibilities. In the end, just experiment and see what you like. Let me know about your favorites. Good luck!

Ingredients:
1 yellow Onion, Finely minced
4 tbsp Butter (½ stick)
¼ cup Flour
2 cups Heavy Cream (room temperature or warmer)
1 cup Chicken Broth
½ cup White Wine
1 cup Parmesan Cheese

Directions:
1. Sauté the Onion in the Butter over medium until translucent but not browned.
2. When butter gets foamy, slowly add in Flour bit by bit, mixing rapidly all the while. The flour should absorb all of the butter and become almost past-like.
3. Cook the flour mixture while stirring for a minute or so. Be careful not to let the flour burn. Make sure to keep mixing.
4. Add in the Heavy Cream a little at a time. As soon as you add in a little liquid, the flour mixture will separate and look like lumps of flour in liquid. Keep stirring, though, until all of the liquid has been absorbed by the flour. Continue adding the cream bit by bit, repeating this procedure.
5. Add in the Chicken Broth, repeating the procedure in 4.
6. Add in the Wine.
7. Once all the liquid is added in, continue to stir constantly. As the sauce heats up, it will slowly thicken. Continue to heat it up and stir, until the sauce begins to boil. Once it begins to boil, it will get no thicker until it cools off.
8. Add in the Parmesan a bit at a time, and stir it in until it is melted and incorporated into the sauce.

Note: As you add in more and more of the liquid in steps 4, 5, and 6, the flour will continue to absorb it as you keep stirring. With each addition, the flour will get more and more loose as you stir in the liquid. At some point the mixture will be all liquid and look like an actual sauce, albeit a thick one. Once it is all liquid, add in the rest of the remaining liquid (Cream, Broth, and Wine) and slowly stir until it is smooth. If you've done it right, the only lumps you'll see in the sauce will be the onions.

Red Sauce

People have been . . . gently suggesting to me in ever-louder voices that I post my recipe for red sauce. Red sauce isn't a hard thing to make, and there are as many variations as there are people that make it. I don't even make it the same way twice, but there are some pretty general guidelines to follow.

The best thing about red sauce is that it is something you can make for a great meal when you have very little time for preparation. Once you learn how to make a great red sauce, you will have a tool that opens many horizons of cooking to you. As a bonus, you’ll stop thinking of it as “spaghetti” sauce, and be able to modify the seasonings in subtle ways that will allow you to use the sauce in dozens of ways and places.

Plus, if you do things right and the Culinary Gods smile on you, you’ll one day run in terror from bottles of Ragu and Prego.

Ingredients:
1 medium Onion, finely minced
2 (or more) Cloves Garlic, finely minced
1 T. Basil, dried
1 T. Oregano, dried
1 T. Rosemary, dried
2 T. Olive Oil
1 106-oz. can Crushed Tomatoes
½ cup Red Cooking Wine

Directions:
1. In a deep, heavy-bottomed stock pot, sauté the Onion, the Garlic, the Basil, the Oregano, and the Rosemary in Olive Oil over medium-high heat.
2. When the onions are translucent, but not yet brown, add in the Crushed Tomatoes, and heat through.
3. When the sauce is hot, add in the Cooking Wine, and simmer for a few more minutes.
4. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes or longer.
5. While the red sauce is simmering, boil a pot of salted water. When it begins to boil, add the pasta and cook until al dente.
6. Drain the pasta and shake out all of the extra water (do NOT rinse it).
7. Serve immediately while the pasta is still hot. Top with a good quality, freshly grated parmesan or asiago cheese.


For variations, if you want a good red sauce done in the Greek style, add in a teaspoon of good quality ground cinnamon. For a spicier experience, add in a ½ teaspoon (or more) of cayenne/peperoncini. This spicy alternative has a wonderful flavor, and is called an arrabbiata sauce.
Also, you can use fresh herbs in place of the dried ones. If you do that, you may want to double the quantity, as fresh herbs tend to be less powerful than dried.