White wine sauce

Thoie

I've made a "kind of" white wine sauce in the past - essentially a white sauce to which I've added cream and white wine (cornflour based). I decided to look at the "proper" way of doing it, and am coming up with a variety of recipes.

Some are essentially just white wine and cream, reduced together. Others are similar to mine, but using the cream instead of butter for the roux. Others are suggesting reducing the wine, adding stock, reducing again, add cream, reduce some more, then finish off with butter.

What's your preferred method, or which of the above has given you the tastiest results?

the beer revolu

Thoie wrote: »

I've made a "kind of" white wine sauce in the past - essentially a white sauce to which I've added cream and white wine (cornflour based). I decided to look at the "proper" way of doing it, and am coming up with a variety of recipes.

Some are essentially just white wine and cream, reduced together. Others are similar to mine, but using the cream instead of butter for the roux. Others are suggesting reducing the wine, adding stock, reducing again, add cream, reduce some more, then finish off with butter.

What's your preferred method, or which of the above has given you the tastiest results?

I'd say the one in bold will give you the most 'cheffy' results.

You could also make a bechemel type sauce (flour and butter base) but rather than using milk, use chicken or fish stock and white wine and add a splash of cream at the end.

Thoie

Will give that one a try so, thanks

Probably a stupid question, but do you think it would freeze well? If I'm going to that much trouble, it'd be handy to make a big batch and freeze some for later. Alternatively I wonder about freezing it after the stock phase, and defrosting then doing the cream and butter another time. The handiest option would be freezing it at the end.

the beer revolu

Thoie wrote: »

Will give that one a try so, thanks

Probably a stupid question, but do you think it would freeze well? If I'm going to that much trouble, it'd be handy to make a big batch and freeze some for later. Alternatively I wonder about freezing it after the stock phase, and defrosting then doing the cream and butter another time. The handiest option would be freezing it at the end.

The bechamel one would freeze fine, the reduction one - I'm not so sure but I think your idea of freezing the reduced stock and wine would work alright.

sharonl

If I'm making a white wine sauce I usually incorporate it into the ingredients and it works pretty well. For example if your making chicken and mushroom in a white wine sauce for pasta or something I sear the chicken in olive oil, remove from the pan, add a massive knob of butter and soften onions and garlic with some herbs on a low heat for around 5 minutes, add chicken back in and some chopped mushrooms, add about a (very large!) glass of wine or maybe one and a half, (I like my wine), turn up the heat and reduce it down until you can no longer get an alcohol smell when you stick your head over the pan, that way the wine flavour infuses into all the ingredients better, then add about a tablespoon of plain flour or enough to get the sauce consistency you want, add some single cream and simmer for around 10 minutes on a gentle heat. If the sauce is too thin you can always add a little more flour and simmer for another few minutes. I find a big dollop of pesto mixed in at the end is good. :cool:

sharon

Thoie

I'm about half way through the reduction sauce method, and it smells delicious so far (I'm not sure if there's an alcohol smell any more - I may be drunk from inhaling the fumes ).

I decided to go with a smaller batch. So far I've got half an onion (finely chopped), some parsley, a bit less than a third of a bottle of white wine, half a knorr chicken stock cube (I seem to be out of veg stock) and a good dollop of water (maybe half a litre) in there (put in at various times).

It's all bubbling away nicely - I'd say I can add the cream in about 10 minutes. I'm doing it with tagliatelle and some salmon - the salmon is already cooked so will fling it in after I put on the pasta - it's fresh pasta so should only take about 3 minutes. Wish me luck!

Kimia

How did it go? I too am trying to perfect a creamy white wine sauce - it's harder than I thought! But so very yummy.

Any other suggestions?

Also - how do the quantities work? How much wine to cream for example?

Thoie

Erm, some?

It turned out delicious, and I made another batch yesterday - this lot for freezing.

The first batch was nicer - as below I used half an onion (finely chopped), some parsley, a bit less than a third of a bottle of white wine, half a knorr chicken stock cube and about half a litre of water.

I started with the onion, parsley and wine, reduced that down to about half. I brought it to the boil then simmered- not sure if that's a no-no. Then I added the half stock cube and half a litre of water. I reduced that to less than half (because I got bored and wandered away for too long). IIRC the first carton of cream was a 250ml with 33% extra free, and I used between a third and a half of that {does some maths} so, about 100ml of cream. I just stirred that in to the reduced liquid/onion mix, and let it heat but didn't let it boil. At the end I put in about a teaspoon of butter to make it glossy. I was using mine for smoked salmon, so threw the salmon in for a minute at the end, then tossed some fresh tagliatelle into it. That was enough for two, and I thought it was very successful.


I tried it again yesterday with the idea of making a bigger batch, and freezing lots of it before the cream stage. I threw in a whole bottle of wine (750ml), two decent sized onions, and some parsley. Reduced to half. Then I added a litre of water, and 1.5 chicken stock cubes (I forgot the veg stock again). In hindsight I should have let the stock reduce more than I did - I aimed for about half, but I felt it was still too watery. At that point I took the bulk out (for freezing), and added about 100ml of cream again.

I haven't frozen the rest yet - I'm debating whether to freeze it as is, and then boil off a good bit of the liquid next time I'm using it, or whether to boil off the liquid now, then freeze. As I think about it, freezing it with the higher water content might be a good thing - I'd have to bring it to the boil next time around anyway, so if I start a bit earlier I can boil it and reduce it at that stage and then just add the cream.

I've some left over from yesterday's batch (as it was so watery) without the salmon, so I'm going to try reducing that tonight with the cream already in it and serve it with chicken, but I'm not sure how well that will work. I'll serve it on the side just in case!

Edit: Just doing some additional maths. I'd say for the first batch I was probably using wine:cream 2:1