How do restaurants really make creamy, sticky, full body pasta sauces consistently

[Nancy739]

Hi Thread Starter : D I live to be helpful To make a cream sauce is actually easy, but perhaps somewhat hard to describe. You might want to watch some YouTube videos to see HOW they do it. Basically, to make a cream sauce you would need butter, flour, milk and cream, cheese if you like, salt & pepper. In the restaurants it tastes especially good because they are not counting calories. It helps to have a whisk, but my Mom always just used a fork.

So you are going to make a roux (pronounced roo). Basically it's a glop that will make your sauce thick. You can adjust the amounts according to your need, but the general rule is equal amounts of fat (butter) and flour. So take a cup of butter and melt it in a medium saucepan. Slowly add a cup of flour stirring constantly (not frantically, just continually). I always thought it helps to know WHY you are doing something, so are going to cook this mixture at a medium heat for a few minutes, just in order to cook the flour so your sauce does not have the raw flour taste. The mixture should have some color as you cook it but of course not dark.

With regards to the milk/cream mixture, half whole milk and half "half & half" would work nicely. If these are at room temperature when adding to the roux it makes your life easier. The thing is to add it s-l-o-w-l-y in the beginning otherwise it will form lumps which makes no one happy. So relax and stir. As the roux thins out you can add the milk/cream more quickly. Cook over medium heat stirring contantly. A wooden spoon works nice. You no longer need the wisk. Add salt & pepper. You can of course adjust the amounts but keep in mind you can always add more salt later but once it's in there, well, that's different.

If you are going to add parmesan cheese, you'll need less salt. You could add a slice or two of American cheese (rip up, stir) parmesan, or even a bit of blue cheese. Don't use a cheese that gets stringy when hot. Remove from heat or keep on low, low, low. If it forms a skin on top, I just stir it in and it desolves again.

Once your sauce has come to a boil it will be thick. It sounds complicated, but it's easy if you watch someone do it : ) Wishing you many creamy sauces in the future.

[gouligann]

runny sauce? cornstarch fixes it. Add it to cold water (or cold stock) mix well, then pour into your sauce, mix well and heat on medium until it thickens.

[steiconi]

Originally Posted by lubby

The only time you should be putting oil in the pasta water before cooking is when you boil Lasagna noodles. You want to the sauce to stick to the pasta but to each their own. I also prefer to mix the sauce and pasta together as well.

I agree, no oil in the pasta water. It will likely retard water absorption so the noodles cook unevenly.

I don't cook lasagna noodles separately, just use an extra watery sauce, and usually let it sit overnight in the fridge before baking. They cook beautifully in the lasagna, soaking up lots of flavor.