at Wed, 04 Feb 2004 13:32:54 GMT in
<[email hidden]>, [email hidden]
(Michael Horowitz) wrote :
...
Quoted message said:
I guess the question should be "when is it appropriate to use a sauce vice a gravy"? Yes, the
answer could be "whenever you feel like it", but there is something missing from that answer. What
does a sauce give me that a gravy does/can not? ...
A sauce gives you the option of a contrasting flavour. If, for instance, you wanted to contrast the
flavour of baked pork chops, you could use a tomato sauce. You can also, of course, make a matching
flavour, if you use a sauce made essentially of the same ingredients as that which the sauce is
going to top.
A gravy lets the match in flavours be very accurate. Obviously, if you're using the very same items
that you wanted to top to act as the topping, the flavours are going to be very close, closer than
what you could achieve in a sauce made separately.
Additionally, a gravy will, typically, have as its base caramelised juices combined with a fair
amount of cooked fat. This is a type of flavour base that it's difficult and impractical to achieve
in other sauce-making techniques, so even if you decided to make a separate "sauce" with some other
caramelised juices and cooked fat, the odds are, it'd be a gravy of the thing that you used to get
those other caramelised juices and cooked fat in the first place.
Meanwhile, because of the same reasons, you can make a sauce that's relatively light and thin, an
effect difficult to achieve with a gravy, simply because of all that fat. For instance, if the
thought of goose, a rich, fatty bird, with goose gravy seemed a little overfacing, you could use
something like a currant sauce to cut through the heaviness of the bird. Here again is an example
of contrast.
So if you want something rich and complementary, use a gravy. If you prefer something light or
contrasting, go for a sauce.
--
Alex Rast [email hidden] (remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)
