The beurre blanc sauce is a branch off of one of the original four basic french mother sauces. Any chef must be able to successfully create any one of them and hundreds of dozens of variations, sans recipe, before ever receiving their diploma. Those four sauces are the basis for all of the other hundreds of other sauces in the world.Bechamel Sauce (white)
Veloute Sauce (blond)
Brown (demi-glace) or Espagnole Sauce
Hollandaise Sauce (butter)
The original sauce would be made with egg yolks, but with so many concerned about the safety of eggs not cooked to oblivion, something had to be done. While nothing satisfies like the real thing, this version comes closee and is more forgiving. The basic sauce can be modified in numerous ways to enhance or bring forward a multitude of flavors from various meats or vegetables as in the version below.
Citrus Beurre Blanc Sauce
1 c heavy cream
1/2 bottle dry white wine
2 T minced shallot
2 T capers
juice of one fresh lemon
8 oz. sweet butter (2 cubes), cut into pats
Pour wine into a sauce pan. Add shallots. Bring to boil and reduce t about half. Add lemon juice and caper and continue reducing another couple of minutes. Stir in heavy cream. Reduce this to about half or until desired thickness. Reduce heat to medium. While whisking, add pats of butter one at a time. Allow each pat to melt before adding the next one. When all the butter is melted, turn the sauce to low and hold until ready to serve. Do not allow the sauce to get too hot (above 170 degrees) or it will seperate and be ruined. Spoon over salmon or most anything. It is delicious and rich.
