Homemade vinaigrettes are the perfect way to sauce a salad.

When I toss around terms like “espagnole,” “roux” and “hollandaise,” don’t be confused. I’m not talking about the Spanish language, French streets or Dutch festivals. I’m talking sauce.

Sauces need not cause would-be cooks consternation. There’s no need to resort to sauce from a can or a jar or – heaven forbid – from a package of mysterious powder to which you add water or milk. This week we’ll explore the (not-so-daunting) art of creating sauces from scratch.

Although a flavorful homemade sauce takes more time than simply opening a jar and pouring it on, the procedure is not complicated and the difference in flavor is tremendous. If you worry about fat and carbohydrates, which seem to go hand in hand with flavor, rest easy. Once you learn the basics, you’ll see how you can adjust recipes to suit your dietary needs.

A good sauce can become a great base for a winter soup or stew, so leftovers can always be put to good use. There’s no need to worry about having the right culinary tools either. Equipment is basic: a saucepan, a whisk and, everyone once in a while, a flat-edged wooden spatula. With excuses gone and reasons abundant, get ready to create some delectable concoctions that complement any number of dishes.

In the world of classical French cuisine – the source of almost all great culinary technique – the basic sauces span seven different categories: white sauces, brown sauces, egg-yolk-and-butter sauces, egg-yolk-and- oil sauces, vinaigrettes, flavored butters and tomato sauces. We’ll save the latter two for another time and concentrate here on technique for the first five. Each category or family of sauces derives from a mother sauce, and from that basic recipe comes a host of variations on a theme.

White sauces
White sauces start with a roux, or a cooked blending of butter and flour. The mother sauce is called béchamel.

To begin, melt two tablespoons of butter in a saucepan. Once the butter has melted completely, add an equal amount of all-purpose flour. Blend the mixture with the edge of a flat wooden spatula or whisk so that the flour is absorbed into the melted butter. The more the roux cooks, the more the flour will toast or brown. For a white sauce, you really don’t want any browning to take place, so once the flour is fully incorporated into the melted butter and the mixture looks like thick white glue, immediately add two cups of milk, half-and-half or heavy cream. Reduce the heat to medium and continue to stir or whisk the mixture until the milk begins to thicken. Congratulations! You have just made a béchamel sauce. So much for mom; now for her versatile offspring.

Béchamel sauce is used as the base for soufflés and cream soups. To make a Mornay sauce from béchamel beginnings, add grated Parmesan cheese and a bit of dry sherry or vermouth. Make your own variations by adding any other cheese as well; and, yes, you can leave out the sherry if you like. Stir cooked pasta into a Mornay made with cheddar cheese and you have spectacular homemade macaroni and cheese.

For a sauce veloute, substitute one cup of chicken, beef, seafood or veal broth for one of the cups of milk or cream, or use the strained pan drippings from your next pot roast or roasted chicken and make fabulous, thick pan gravy.

If you like the taste of curry, a quick adaptation of a béchamel leaves you with a rich, flavorful curry cream sauce to serve over grilled chicken, lamb or steamed or roasted vegetables. Start by sautéeing a half cup of finely minced onions in the butter, before you add the flour. Add a tablespoon of curry powder to the flour and blend well before adding it to the butter and onions to make your roux. Finish with the addition of milk and/or broth, and spoon your creation over the meat or vegetables of your choice.

To make a low-fat white sauce, substitute a fat-free nondiary liquid creamer for the milk or cream.

Brown sauces
A sauce espagnole, literally the mother of all brown sauces, generally takes longer to prepare than white sauces, but the slower simmer yields intense flavors. Sauce espagnole is the base for most beef sauces.

Start with a mirepoix, a combination of minced vegetables – most often, carrots, onions and celery. You’ll need about a cup of each. Sauté the vegetables in a quarter cup of hot butter or canola or olive oil over medium- high heat until soft and tender. The sauté pulls the natural sugars out of the vegetables, forming the foundation of a brown sauce’s flavor.

Once the veggies are limp and lightly browned, add four to five tablespoons of flour to make the roux. This time, let the flour toast a bit for a darker roux, which adds both flavor and color to your sauce. Once the roux is golden brown, add five to six cups of beef broth and about three tablespoons of tomato paste to the pan. Next, add some fresh or dried herbs like a bay leaf, a tablespoon or two of thyme leaves and a sprig of fresh parsley. Blend well.

This sauce does not thicken like the white sauce; instead, it simmers over a lower heat for a longer time. As the sauce cooks, the liquid in the pan condenses and the flavors become more intense. Simmer over medium-low heat until the sauce is reduced to half its original volume. The process may take a few hours, but the result is a sauce full of flavor. As a final step in creating the sauce espagnole, strain the vegetables and the herbs from the liquid. If you boil the espagnole down to a third or a quarter of its original volume, you have created a demi-glace. Both the demi-glace and the espagnole may be frozen, so it is worth the time to make a large batch, divide it into small portions and freeze it for future use.

For a heartier sauce, add one cup of red wine or Port to two cups of espagnole. Slowly simmer and reduce by half to concentrate the flavors of both wine and sauce.

Be sure to use a wine you would drink with dinner rather than something old, left over or vinegary tasting. And certainly avoid anything labeled “cooking wine.” After all, if it doesn’t taste good when you start, then boiling it down to concentrate the flavor just makes a bad taste even worse.

Sauce Diable, a spicy variation of brown sauce, is made by adding black or green peppercorns to the espagnole. Diable is well suited for all types of beef and pork.

For Madeira sauce, start with a half cup of dry Madeira, a fortified wine made in Portugal. Boil the Madeira down to three tablespoons to concentrate the flavor. Add two cups of espagnole to the pan, stir, and cook until warm. To transform any of these variations into a brown mushroom sauce, an excellent complement to beef, veal, lamb and chicken, start by sauteeing sliced mushrooms and then add the espagnole.

You can cheat the lengthy cooking process of a brown sauce without sacrificing flavor if you start with the pan drippings from a roast chicken or pot roast. Remove the roasted poultry or beef from the pan and keep warm. Place the roasting pan on a hot burner and deglaze the pan by adding a couple of cups of warm chicken or beef broth to the pan and using your flat-edged wooden spatula to scrape up any browned bits stuck to the bottom of the pan. Allow the mixture to come to a boil and cook for 10-15 minutes. Remove from the heat and strain, pouring the liquid from the deglazing process into a small saucepan. Add red wine, Port, Madeira or peppercorns and herbs to the pan and bring the mixture to a boil, allowing it to reduce to half its original volume.

Oil-and-vinegar sauces
Vinaigrettes are perhaps one of the easiest sauces to make. With the number of flavored olive oils and herb vinegars now on the market, the variations are endless.

Homemade vinaigrettes are not only good over mixed greens and vegetable or fruit salads, but delicious when used as marinades for any type of fish or cut of chicken destined for the grill.

The basic formula is as follows: Blend together one-third to one-half cup high quality wine or herb vinegar with a pinch of salt and pepper, a teaspoon of prepared mustard, a teaspoon of minced shallot or leek (any other type of onion will be too strong) and a tablespoon of your favorite dried or fresh herb. Blend the mixture with a whisk. While you are whisking, slowly drizzle in one-third to one-half cup of olive oil. As you whisk, the mixture will emulsify – but don’t pour the olive oil too fast or the mixture will never blend together properly. If it begins to separate over time, just shake it up or whisk again. If you’d like a creamy vinaigrette, add a tablespoon of mayonnaise to the vinegar mix before blending in the oil.

You can easily change the flavor of the vinaigrette to suite your taste. Just add flavored salts or peppers, sugar, a variety of herbs or even some grated feta or Parmesan cheese. Lemon, lime, orange or grapefruit juice may be substituted for or blended in with the vinegar for a totally different taste, and the use of different vinegars changes the flavor as well. Balsamic vinegars make the mixture sweeter, whereas apple cider or malt vinegars produce the sharpest flavor.

The one hard-and-fast rule with vinaigrettes is to mix all of the flavors into the vinegar before adding the oil. If you do it the other way around, the flavors become suspended in the oil and cannot reach their fullest potential.

Egg-based sauces
Hollandaise and its close second cousin, béarnaise, are egg-based sauces, each beginning with butter and egg yolks. If you are worried about cholesterol, you can use margarine (although butter works best) and a liquid egg substitute. Use about two tablespoons of egg substitute for each egg yolk the recipe requires.

Hollandaise and béarnaise sauces have gained a reputation for being tricky because it’s easy to overcook egg yolks, resulting in a curdled sauce. The secret is patience and a low heat source. To help control the heat, these sauces are often prepared in the top pan of a double boiler over a bottom pan of gently simmering, but not boiling, water.

Mayonnaises are a typical example of an egg-yolk-and-oil-based sauce. Original recipes call for egg yolks, but because these sauces are not cooked, it is preferable to use egg substitute, which is pasteurized and therefore safe to eat in the raw state. For the same reason, egg substitutes are also good to use in the base for uncooked egg nog and homemade ice cream.

Once you get the hang of the basic mayonnaise recipes, you can make variations to your heart’s content by adding flavorful mustards, herbs, peppercorns, spices, horseradish, roasted chopped onions or garlic or even a touch of sugar for a sweeter spread or slaw dressing. You are only limited by your imagination.

Homemade Hollandaise Sauce
3 egg yolks or 6 Tbsp. egg substitute
Pinch of salt
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 Tbsp. cold butter
2 sticks hot melted butter
Salt and pepper to taste
In a cold saucepan, use an electric mixer to beat the egg yolks until they are slightly thick and light lemon yellow in color. Beat in the salt, lemon juice and one tablespoon of the cold butter. Place the pan over a warm burner and continue to beat the eggs either with an electric mixer or by hand with a whisk just until the mixture starts to thicken slightly. You may want to remove the pan from the heat source from time to time to make sure the egg yolks do not get too hot. Just as the mixture starts to thicken, drizzle the melted butter and whisk it into the egg mix. The mixture should reach the consistency of heavy cream.

If you add the butter too quickly, it will not incorporate into the eggs and the sauce will separate. If this happens, don’t panic. Take a tablespoon or so of the separated sauce and place it in a mixing bowl with a tablespoon of lemon juice. Whisk the mixture together and then drizzle in the remaining separated sauce a bit at time. The sauce will slowly begin to thicken and bind. Béarnaise sauce variation – In a small saucepan bring one-quarter cup of white wine vinegar and one-quarter cup of dry white wine to a boil with one tablespoon of minced shallot, one tablespoon of fresh or dried minced tarragon leaves and a bit of salt and pepper. Allow the mixture to boil down to only two tablespoons of liquid. Remove from heat. Strain the vinegar to remove the shallots and herbs. Use this seasoned vinegar in place of the lemon juice in the hollandaise sauce recipe above. Add a tablespoon of fresh minced or dried tarragon leaves to the finished sauce.

Homemade Mayonnaise
1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp. liquid egg substitute
1 Tbsp. lemon juice or white wine vinegar
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp. salt
Pepper to taste
2 cups canola oil
Place the egg substitute in a mixing bowl or in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel knife. Blend in the lemon juice, mustard and salt and pepper. With the machine running, or with constant whisking, drizzle in the oil a bit at a time so that it will become incorporated with the eggs. As the oil is incorporated, the mayonnaise will become thicker. Homemade mayonnaise will keep in your refrigerator for about a week. If you want to season your mayonnaise, add ingredients such as roasted garlic or horseradish to the egg mixture at the beginning with the lemon juice and mustard, for the best blending of flavor.

It's easy to create homemade mayonnaise by whisking olive oil into seasoned egg yolks.

Well-known Charlotte restaurant critic, food writer, cooking instructor and connoisseur of food and wine, Heidi Edidin writes "The Charlotte Weekly: Culinary Corner," a restaurant review or food feature that appears weekly. Contact Heidi with questions and restaurant, food or story ideas by email at heidi@thecharlotteweekly.com.

CW photos by Melissa Cherry.

This article first appeared in "The Charlotte Weekly" on January 7, 2005. "The Charlotte Weekly" is a free, locally owned, independent newspaper that's "About the Community, For the Community," available every Thursday in North and South Charlotte and Uptown.

Copyright 2005 by The Charlotte Weekly and WSOCTV.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.