Elevate your plate: sauces for all seasons
One of my cooking instructors was fond of quoting Anthony Bourdain: “An ounce of sauce covers a multitude of sins,” she said as she walked through the stations of cooks in training, watching us work. While very little will camouflage poor technique or inferior ingredients, sauces can mitigate flaws and accentuate strengths of a dish.
Like most things, sauces exist on a spectrum from unctuous to piercingly sharp and can balance the sins of the opposite nature. A rich gravy eases the austerity of simple (dare I say healthy) foods. A bracingly acidic and herbaceous sauce adds cheekiness to a dish lost in the doldrums of comfort food.
These three sauce recipes illustrate that spectrum. Rich tomato mayonnaise adds excitement to a bowl of healthy food. Spoon it over any combination of shaved vegetables or add dollops to brothy soups. Mixed herb gremolata is the opposite, all herbs and lemon with just enough olive oil and anchovy to hold it all together. It is a classic foil to rich braised meats like osso bucco or seared filets of salmon. The pickled walnut relish lies somewhere in between—the natural fat in the walnuts soaks up acidity as they cool, imparting the best of both flavors to any dish lucky enough to benefit from them.
As sauces range from one end of the spectrum to the other, so too do the meals they embellish. If you have a dish that feels flabby around the edges, try a bright, acidic sauce to perk it up. Conversely, a recipe that feels too thin becomes robust with the swirl of an indulgent sauce. Just a hint of sin to mask a pious crime.
Roasted Tomato Mayonnaise
Pounded Walnut Relish
Mixed Herb Gremolata
