Sauce

This sauce tastes great over pasta, fish, or grilled chicken—and is packed with beneficial lycopene from the cooked tomatoes.

Salmon seasoned with orange, lemon, and lime contrasts beautifully with a fresh-pea puree. Green peas—actually legumes, not vegetables—are high in protein and vitamin K, which boosts bone health.

You can make this sauce with thawed frozen peas instead of fresh, in which case they don’t need to be blanched.

This rich pumpkin-seed sauce, based on traditional Mexican moles, is made with green herbs, and is just as satisfying as cheese- or cream-based sauces but contains far less saturated fat and fewer calories. Serve the dish with rice for an authentic accompaniment.

The Mexican equivalent of crème fraîche, crema is often served with Southwestern dishes as a relief to spicy food, as well as to provide richness—with refried beans or a spicy stew, for example. Crème fraîche and natural sour cream are acceptable substitutes.

One herald of fall’s cooler weather in northern New Mexico is the ristra—the strings of ripe, red chiles that hang outside to dry alongside doorways and against brown adobe walls. Once dried, the chiles are stored to use throughout the winter in sauces like this one. This recipe is a classic New Mexican red chile sauce and the perfect stage for a whole range of Southwestern foods or as a base for other, more complex sauces from barbecue sauce to moles to stews.

“Red or green?” means what color chile sauce do you prefer? It’s the usual question posed to anyone ordering a main course in traditional New Mexican restaurants. This is my version of the favorite cooked green chile sauce served with just about everything in New Mexico and other parts of the Southwest. It pairs well with all kinds of dishes, from eggs to roast beef. Make it hot or hotter by the type of chile you use—up to you. I prefer the fall chiles, roasted when they are turning red from green and a little sweeter.

This is one of my favorite sauces—it’s simple, but often poorly executed. When it’s done right—the tomatoes and serranos blackened, the onion and garlic sautéed, the sauce gently fried with some cilantro and roasted poblanos—it’s a rustic, vivid, soulful sauce that goes great with eggs, chicken, pork, tamales, and seafood.

Why make this versatile sauce yourself instead of buying it already prepared? You’ll get a smokier, more interesting result that’s free of additives and excess amounts of salt and vinegar of the commercial versions. It’s also a great base for other ingredients—tomatillos would be a flavorful addition. Use it in marinades, soups, as part of other sauces, or as a spicy table condiment at a taco party.

The green tomatillo has a bright sharp flavor akin to that of green plums or rhubarbs. In the winter months, when it’s sometimes hard to get fresh red tomatoes, I use tomatillos, which are available all year. This sauce makes the ideal cool counterpart to spicy salsas. The unusual addition of ice keeps the cilantro green when pureed with the other ingredients.

Pesto is one of those once-exotic foodstuffs that has become ubiquitous on the American table. It hails from the Italian city of Genoa, in Liguria. Don’t limit yourself to pairing it with pasta—it’s sensational on sandwiches, pizza, and even as a topping for vegetables such as tomatoes and corn. A mortar and pestle (preferably large) is the best tool to use for crushing the basil, since it produces a sweeter-tasting sauce (a food processor also works, as long as you don’t overmix). It’s the traditional equipment, after all, that gives the sauce its name. In this recipe the garlic is blanched first to mellow its flavor; if you prefer the pungent taste of raw garlic, omit this step and use only one or two cloves. For variety, add a little fresh parsley, spinach, or arugula, or substitute pine nuts with walnuts or almonds (chopped after toasting). Store pesto in an airtight container, covered with 1/4 inch of olive oil (to preserve color) in the refrigerator.

Bologna, the capital of the northern region of Emilia-Romagna, is considered by many to be the food capital of Italy. Besides being the birthplace of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, balsamic vinegar, and Prosciutto di Parma, Emilia-Romagna differs from the rest of the country in the richness and complexity of its cuisine; Bolognese Sauce, with its delicate aroma and balanced flavors, is no exception. The sauce is hearty but also profoundly elegant, and is especially delicious when tossed with fresh pappardelle (see page 367 for how to roll and cut fresh pasta dough into these flat, long, wide strands). You’ll need about 3 cups for 12 ounces of pappardelle. The sauce can also be baked into lasagne (using spinach noodles as the Bolognese do; page 386) or served over gnocchi (page 376). For the meat sauce to have its characteristic richness and complexity, it must be cooked slowly over low temperature (what many cooks call “slow and low”). You simply cannot rush it, but know that your patience will be rewarded.

Marinara is the most basic tomato sauce for pasta and pizza, consisting only of tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, and minimal seasonings. With so few ingredients, the quality of the tomatoes and olive oil is critical. The recipe below calls for fresh tomatoes. A combination of very ripe plum and beefsteak is best; plum tomatoes are fleshier with fewer seeds, while beefsteaks have a balanced, delicious flavor. If fresh tomatoes are not in season, by all means substitute canned whole tomatoes, preferably the imported variety from Italy (or other high-quality tomatoes). It is imperative that the garlic doesn’t color at all in the beginning, as this will give the sauce an unpleasant bitterness. That’s why the garlic and the oil are heated together briefly over moderate heat. Then the tomatoes are quickly added (after only 30 to 45 seconds), which will help keep the garlic from browning. This sauce is used in the lasagne on page 386, but it’s also perfect over ricotta-filled ravioli (page 369) or tossed with spaghetti and sprinkled with freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or Romano cheese.

With its light taste and texture, this sauce is best paired with slender strands, such as cappellini, spaghetti, or linguine; to serve, toss sauce with freshly boiled and drained pasta, adding a generous handful of fresh basil leaves, torn into pieces. And keep in mind that although the sauce is extremely easy, it does need an hour or two to allow the flavors to meld, so plan accordingly.

These two egg-based sauces are examples of emulsions, among the most ethereal of the sauces in the classic canon. Emulsions are mixtures of two substances, such as oil and vinegar, that would not usually combine; made properly, they are perfectly smooth and delectably rich yet surprisingly light. Although other ingredients, such as butter and mustard, can act as emulsifiers, the egg yolk is the most effective. It is also a stabilizer, holding the emulsion over time.

This rich yet airy, velvety sauce is made by enriching an acidic liquid with egg yolks and then thickening with butter. Here, we used a wine reduction, but you can skip that step and simply whisk eggs with 1 teaspoon lemon juice and 1/4 cup boiling water. As one of the French “mother sauces,” its preparation is a basic culinary technique that can be varied to create other sauces in the same family (often referred to as “warm emulsions”). By changing the acidic liquid to blood orange juice and zest, you get sauce Maltaise, typically served over steamed asparagus; tangerine juice and zest flavor Mikado sauce. Perhaps the best-known variation is Béarnaise, a traditional accompaniment for steak. To make it, prepare the hollandaise as directed, adding tarragon (the defining flavor of Béarnaise) to the reduction mixture. As it is designed to demonstrate, the method is the key to making the sauce, not the specific ingredients used to give it flavor. When making hollandaise or any of its variations, using gentle heat is critical to achieving the right consistency. The best—and classic—way to do this is to “cook” it in a bain marie, or hot-water bath, instead of directly over a burner.

Making your own mayonnaise is a great way to observe the process of emulsification—and the result is far superior to the store-bought variety. The key to preparing any emulsion is to add the oil very slowly while whisking constantly and vigorously. In this case, you end up with a creamy concoction in which tiny droplets of oil are suspended in the lemon juice.