Mornay Sauce

Could my family roots have an impact on the way I’ve been cooking? I’d say “YES”! Being a French descendant and Québécoise, my roots definitely have had a huge influence on my cooking style. I grew up eating a lot of sauces. My mother made sauces for almost every dish. Besides a few exceptions, sauces were as common at dinner time as having a fresh baguette and butter on the family dinner table every night. It’s interesting because a friend of mine when I was just starting at junior high was impressed that each time she came over for dinner, there was always a sauce accompanying the meal – either cooked in or with sauces. Her background was Scottish and her family didn’t eat that much sauce.

As a child, I was used to eating that way and it’s only when I moved out on my own that I realized I had to learn how to make sauces… and quick! My culinary talent was minimal but one thing that saved me quite often with my amateur recipes was my sauces. I mastered the 5 mother sauces of French cuisine without knowing it. I obviously had a great culinary teacher… my mother!

Let’s go back to how our background can effect what we eat…

When David and I started to live together, after a few months he told me that he never ate so much cheese in his life – his background is German! I always have at least 7 different cheeses in my refrigerator. This is how it was at my parents so obviously I love cheese… a lot!

A couple of months ago, I showed you the technique on how to make a Béchamel Sauce aka White Sauce which is one of the 5 mother sauces of French cuisine. From this particular recipe, a few other sauces are made and they are called “secondary” sauces. One of them is Mornay.

Mornay is basically a white cheese sauce. It is used quite often in pasta recipes as well as with poultry, seafood, fish, vegetables, and so on… This is a great sauce for you to have in your repertoire because it can be used in a wide variety of your dishes. Like anything else, you have to learn how to crawl before running and this is why I first posted the Béchamel Sauce aka White Sauce so you can make sauces like Mornay and many others! It’s very easy to make and you’ll be very happy to have this recipe around…
Bon Appétit!

 

For ingredient amounts and much more, visit http://clubfoody.com/recipe/mornay-sauce/