Mastering Sauces: The Home Cook’s Guide to New Techniques for Fresh Flavors - Hardcover

Volland, Susan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393241858 ISBN 13: 9780393241853

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2015

Synopsis

The definitive cookbook on contemporary sauces that highlights fresh flavors and updated classics.

Finally, a cookbook on sauces that is fresh, vibrant, and alive. In Mastering Sauces, Susan Volland veers away from traditional lesson plans and presents sauce-making in a whole new way. She focuses on how great cooks all over the world make sauces with impromptu élan―they splash and drizzle, slather and douse. Great sauces are made by following three fundamental principles: Maximize Flavor, Manipulate Texture, and Season Confidently. Armed with these principles, you can make any sauce your way.

In addition to over 150 recipes that reflect today’s tastes for seasonal produce, international ingredients, and alternative dietary choices, there are dozens of tips and tables suggesting ways to adapt and customize sauces. There are innovative Meatless Reductions, international Sauces That Start with a Can of Diced Tomatoes, and an Endlessly Adaptable Stir-Fry Sauce. Don’t have time to make stock? Brew a quick “Mock Stock” or savory infusion. Not eating meat? Avoiding wheat? Check out the chapter called Respect Your Mother, where, alongside the classics, there are tantalizing recipes for Vegan Corn “Hollandaise” (pictured on the cover), Soy Cream Sauce, and Eggless Mayo.

In a conversational and very readable style, Volland teaches the “whys” and “hows” of sauce-making so cooks can better understand their ingredients to create the dish they want. And because she knows that even the best cooks have off-nights, she finishes with a list of Remedies for Faltering Sauces.

Mastering Sauces is the go-to resource for all cooks, all tastes, and all diets.

16 pages of color photographs

About this title

About the Author:

Susan Volland is a classically trained chef and cookbook collaborator based in Seattle. She is the author of Searing Inspiration and Mastering Sauces: The Home Cook’s Guide to New Techniques for Fresh Flavors, named a Best Cookbook of the Year by the Washington Post, the Seattle Times, and the Chicago Tribune.

Review:

“Smart and wide-ranging, with terrific pages of tips and variations.”
- Bonnie Benwick, Washington Post

“Volland's intent is to get you comfortable with the elements of a good sauce, then set you free in your kitchen. ... The book is not about the five French mother sauces; oh, they're here, but much more ink in the 450-plus pages is spent on how we cook today, from updating those classics to her endlessly adaptable stir-fry sauce to smart things to do with canned tomatoes.”
- Joe Gray, Chicago Tribune

“The bible of successful sauce making.”
- Nick Harman, Foodepedia

“In this penetrating volume, the reader will learn sauces ranging from hollandaise to Thai peanut sauce―Mastering Sauces is a must-buy, and an essential one, for any serious cook.”
- James Peterson, James Beard Award–winning author of Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making

“Susan’s contributions to The Cooking Lab were invaluable. Now she’s written a comprehensive guide to learning the fundamentals of sauce-making, taking home cooks on a tour of versatile techniques and international flavors.”
- Nathan Myhrvold, coauthor of Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking and Modernist Cuisine at Home

“Susan Volland combines science, hedonism, and common sense in this groundbreaking book. So much more than a cookbook, Mastering Sauces is a treatise on flavor, taste, and texture for the twenty-first century.”
- Molly Stevens, James Beard Award–winning author of All About Roasting and All About Braising

“Susan Volland gives home cooks the confidence and knowledge not only to make sauces, but also to create their own. This book is an important addition to every kitchen library.”
- Jennifer McLagan, James Beard Award–winning author of Bones, Fat, Odd Bits, and

“A smart, lucid, and beautifully written manual for making glorious sauces from around the world. It will educate and inspire both learned sauciers and novices alike.”
- James Oseland, editor-in-chief, Rodale’s Organic Life and author of Cradle of Flavor

“From the chef’s perspective, a dish isn’t finished until you sauce it. The recipes in this book―focused and sensuous―are right in tune with the way we eat today. So don’t cover up that pristine fillet of wild salmon or those fresh, fat spears of local asparagus you so carefully sourced with a tone-deaf sauce. Try a recipe from this book and elevate your home cooking from ordinary to extraordinary.”
- Tom Douglas, James Beard Award–winning chef, Dahlia Lounge, Seattle, and author of Tom Douglas’ Seattle Kitchen

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0393241858
• ISBN 13: 9780393241853
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 496