Tips for Making Sauces and Gravies: New Orleans Cooking

The secret to any sauce or gravy is the ingredients. All good sauces and gravy must start with butter, and onions. First you need to chop a small amount of onion depending on how much gravy you are going to prepare. A quarter of an onion would be enough for about a quart of gravy, which is plenty of gravy. The amount of butter for that gravy would be about 1/2 of a stick of butter. This will make a rich tasty gravy or sauce. Sautee' the onions in the butter on low heat and stir until onions are clear.

The next step is to use some flour and stir in one heaping tablespoon of flour or less. I like to brown my flour in advance if I am making dark gravy. All purpose white flour will work just as well.

The next secret for gravy is to add small amounts of ingredients at a time and then add water as needed or more flour to get the consistency you like. I would not add more than ½ cup of water initially unless you are experienced and have made that particular gravy or sauce before. Once you have made the basic stock you can let your culinary imagination run wild and you can add anything you want after that. The next secret is to always add a little of whatever you choose to use at first and then more as needed.

For pork, beef, turkey, or lamb, or chicken gravies I will add the drippings from the meat that I am preparing again a little at a time. Sometimes I will add a bouillon cube to enhance the flavor of the gravy.

For sauces, you can add any flavoring you desire as well as cheeses or seafood such as crawfish or shrimp or crab. The same base can be used for chowders or bisque.

The gravies or sauce should be allowed to simmer for at least 30 minutes to allow for the flavors to blend. Preparing sauces and gravies in advance and then reheating only adds to the flavor so that is perfectly okay.

The secret ingredients for any good gravy or sauce are the onion, butter, flour and water.

Everything else including other seasonings, salt and pepper, bouillons and whatever else you want to add will taste wonderful if you start with your onions and butter in small amounts and then add everything else a little at a time stirring on low heat until you are an expert.

Bon Appetit

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