Make a Velouté Sauce
Velouté sauce is one of the most common sauces from French cuisine and is often used on poultry or seafood dishes. If you want to make your own velouté sauce, all you need is some butter, flour, stock, and salt and pepper to taste.
Ingredients
- 2 tsp butter
- 2 tsp flour
- 1.5 cups stock. This may be beef, chicken, veal, fish and vegetable, but preferably freshly made. (See tips).
- Salt and pepper to taste.
Steps
- Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat and add the flour. Stir well until it has lightened in color to be a blonde roux.
- You can make it a dark roux for a more brown color by continuing to cook it until it reaches a desired brown color. Stir continuously to prevent it from burning.
- Add the stock to the roux in batches and whisk or stir each batch until smooth.
- Cook gently for approximately 5 minutes while stirring regularly to prevent sticking.
- Taste to ensure the sauce is smooth and not floury in taste. Velouté should be velvety smooth. Season to taste.
- Finished.
Variations
- Sauce Bercy. This classic sauce uses a fish stock velouté with 1 finely chopped shallot added with the stock in the early stages. Then add 1 tsp finely chopped fresh parsley, 50ml of white wine and lemon juice to taste.
- Mushroom Velouté. Sauté 2 or 3 thinly sliced mushrooms briskly in a little butter - don't allow them to stew. Add some lemon juice to taste and 1 tsp fresh chopped parsley to the finished velouté. This can be with a chicken or light beef stock velouté.
- Sauce Aurora. Add 1 T rich tomato paste or 1/2 cup of pureed tomatoes. Simmer until thickened. This is more usual with a chicken stock velouté.
- Sauce Supreme. Sauté 2-3 sliced mushrooms in a little butter and then add 1/4 cup of stock or water. Simmer until the liquid has reduced to a third. Add the liquid and some cream (about 50ml) to a chicken velouté.
Tips
- Velouté as a base sauce is rarely served just as the base, but has many variations which the final sauce becomes.
- To make it richer, add some cream or egg yolks.
- Typically the stock used is the same as the finished dish you will serve, so fish stock with fish or seafood meals.
- Velouté also uses lighter stocks, such as chicken, fish or veal with a blonde roux. You can use a rich beef stock with a darker roux.
- To make the sauce thinner for a rich soup, add more stock.
Things You'll Need
- Saucepan
- Wooden spoon or whisk
- Measuring utensils
- Chopping board & knife (optional)
