Red sauce: how to cook, for meat, step-by-step recipe

Simple method with starch

This is one of the most popular methods. Starch will help thicken the sauce. You just need to add the right amount. To do this you need to take the following ingredients:

• glass of water;
• 500 ml sauce;
• a tablespoon of starch.

Instead of water, it is allowed to use broths, vegetable, meat or fish broths. Most often, potato starch is used to thicken the sauce. However, for some dishes they also use corn. This is usually prescribed in recipes. You can use any sauce.

How to thicken the sauce?

This can be done step by step as follows:

1. The starch should be placed in a bowl.
2. Pour cold water over it, stirring thoroughly. What is the best way to dilute starch? It's easier to use a whisk. By whipping the mass quickly enough, you can achieve rapid and complete dissolution of the powder. You can also use a mixer. But this is advisable if you are preparing a large portion of the sauce.
3. Then the sauce itself is heated over low heat.
4. When it boils, add starch water, doing it slowly, in a thin stream. Stir the mixture constantly.
5. Afterwards, the composition is brought to a boil again, cooked for another couple of minutes, and then removed from the stove. The dish is ready.

Thickeners for sauce and gravy

To make the sauce thicker and richer, other ingredients are used in addition to starch. Depending on what recipe is used to prepare the gravy, you can use the following food additives:

Wheat, rye or buckwheat flour. If you are making a sweet custard, you can use regular flour instead of starch. Before adding to the milk mixture, it is advisable to sift the flour - this will make the cream even more delicate in taste.

Eggs (yolks). The sweet custard is further thickened by adding raw egg yolks.

Semolina. You can thicken the milk sauce using semolina. Semolina absorbs liquid remarkably well and, even if the mixture has already cooled, it will perfectly serve as a thickener.

Arrowroot is a starch flour made from arrowroot and banana pulp. Makes the sauce even clearer and is ideal for thickening both sweet and savory gravies. However, this ingredient has several disadvantages: it is much more expensive than starch, and if you leave the already thickened mixture on a hot stove, it will become liquid again.

Dairy products. For meat gravy, you can use sour cream or heavy cream. When boiled, they will make the dressing much thicker.

Edible gums are common food additives that are used to thicken a wide variety of liquids. They do not affect the taste and color of the finished sauce, so they are very often used in cooking. The most popular types of food gum are xanthan gum, agar gum, pectin or guar gum.

• Agar is a gelling agent made from red and brown algae. Before you thicken a sauce with agar-agar, you will need to add the thickener to cool water or another liquid and heat it, but do not bring it to a boil. Once the agar has dissolved, the mixture can be added to the sauce.
• Xanthan gum is a food additive (E 415), a universal thickener that is often used to thicken most desserts and salad dressings.
• Pectin is a gelling agent, usually used in the food industry in the preparation of jams and jellies. Despite this, it can be successfully used to thicken milk and cream sauces.
• Guar gum. This thickener works when cold. Therefore, it is best used for preparing salad sauces. Before diluting the guar gum, it is advisable to heat the mixture a little. After the additive is completely dissolved, it needs to be cooled and added to a snack or salad. The most suitable recipe for this thickener is salad dressing made from fresh vegetables.

Tomato sauce

You can prepare the product to the desired consistency by taking the following ingredients:

• kilogram of onions;
• four kilograms of tomatoes;
• 300 grams of sugar;
• five tablespoons of starch;
• four chili peppers;
• three tablespoons of salt;
• a couple of teaspoons of paprika;
• the same amount of ground cinnamon;
• ten carnations;
• four bay leaves;
• 120 grams of 9 percent vinegar.

The tomatoes are washed and chopped using a blender. You can also run them through a meat grinder. The onion is peeled and cut into half rings. Pour tomato puree into the pan, add pepper pods, onions, bay leaves and cloves. Add sugar, salt, seasonings. Stir thoroughly. Cover the pan with a lid and place on medium heat.

After boiling, cook the sauce on low gas for another two hours. Stir occasionally.

Then place a sieve on a clean container and strain the sauce. After this, place on the stove and bring to a boil. If the mass turns out to be liquid, you can thicken the sauce. To do this, it is boiled for three hours. But it will be easier to add starch, stir thoroughly, and then cook for another thirty minutes. After this, add vinegar and remove the sauce from the stove. This preparation can be placed in sterile jars and rolled up for the winter.

Gravy with tomato paste and meat

Ingredients:

• pork pulp – 400-450 g;
• carrot – 1 pc.;
• onion – 1 pc.;
• garlic – 1-2 cloves;
• tomato paste – 1.5 tablespoon;
• vegetable oil – 30-40 g;
• salt, pepper - to taste;
• some water.

How to make gravy with meat and tomato

1. Rinse the meat well, dry with a paper towel, and cut into medium pieces. In this form, it will be evenly fried and will remain juicy and will not be dry.
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2. Heat the oil in a frying pan, add the pieces of pork and fry until nicely golden brown. The fire needs to be a little more than medium. Quickly fried fillet retains its juiciness inside. After frying, add salt and pepper to taste.

3. Cut the carrots into cubes and the onion into cubes. Squeeze the garlic through a garlic press.

4. Add the vegetables to the meat pieces, mix and fry everything together for a couple of minutes. The carrots and onions will quickly become soft, and the garlic will give off its incredible aroma.

5. Pour in enough water to cover the goulash, about a glass. Turn on high heat and bring to a boil. Now turn down the gas and simmer the stew for 30-40 minutes until soft. Mature or aged pork can take 50 minutes to cook, so it's better to simmer longer rather than shorter.

6. When the stew becomes tender and soft, add tomato paste and stir.

7. Simmer the gravy for another 7-10 minutes and it’s done.

You can serve the delicious gravy with meat along with any side dish, at your discretion and preference.

Sauce with flour

This is another easy way to thicken the sauce. You need to add flour to it. You can do this in various ways:

1. The simplest one is to sift the flour over a saucepan with the prepared sauce, heat the mixture, stirring constantly. The main thing is to prevent the formation of lumps.
2. The second option is suitable for those who are not lazy to boil sauces. To do this, about a tablespoon of flour is diluted in warm water. After this liquid is poured into the sauce in a thin stream, stirring. The sauce will become thinner due to the water, so you need to give it time to reduce.

Sauce recipe with flour

This product is called "White". It requires a minimum amount of ingredients. To prepare this sauce you need to take:

• 500 ml cream;
• 50 grams of butter;
• a tablespoon of flour;
• salt and pepper to taste.

This sauce can become the basis for new dressing options. To begin, place a frying pan with a thick bottom on the stove and melt the butter on it. Lightly fry the flour on it. Make sure it doesn't turn dark. Without ceasing to stir, pour in half the cream. Stir the mixture well so that no lumps form. Afterwards the sauce will become thicker. Then add spices and remaining cream. Stir again. After thickening again, the sauce is ready for use.

In the future, you can add various spices, herbs, vegetables, and so on. You can also use milk rather than cream, thereby reducing the calorie content of the dish.

Inexperienced cooks often wonder how to thicken a sauce. After all, you want to get a rich gravy that will look decent. A great option is to use starch or flour. These ingredients are found in every home. The only negative is constant stirring of the mass so that lumps do not form.

Many novice (and not so beginner) housewives, when preparing gravy, sometimes encounter the fact that when adding flour, the sauce turns out to be heterogeneous. This does not affect the taste, but the appearance (and with it the mood) deteriorates. I would like to offer you a very simple solution. Many thanks to Ole. This is truly a lifesaver.

What can replace flour for thick gravy?

Although the vast majority of hot gravies contain browned flour, its use is by no means essential. You can replace flour in the sauce with simple ingredients, one of which is probably on your kitchen shelf. The taste of the gravy will change only slightly by replacing the flour - no more than 1-2 tsp is required for thickening. food product.

Starch

Using starch in hot gravies has its advantages - the sauce is not mealy, does not harden in the plate and does not change the color of the gravy. You need to add it after dissolving the starch granules in a small amount of cold water. Then the resulting mixture must be added to the sauce during the stewing process.

Cream

Gravy with cream turns out very tender, almost airy in taste. The thicker the cream used, the better the sauce will thicken (at least 30%). They need to be poured directly into the frying pan after frying the vegetables for gravy, adding a piece of butter.

Potato

If you are preparing gravy for meat, it is best to thicken it with boiled potatoes. Potatoes will give the sauce a pleasant consistency, thickness and satiety. One large potato needs to be peeled and cooked for 20–25 minutes after boiling, then mashed into a puree. When mashed, add to the boiling gravy.

Semolina

Ordinary semolina can help out when the house suddenly runs out of flour. In the gravy, it will swell and dissolve in a matter of minutes, and the sauce will thicken. Semolina ideally replaces the flour component. But it’s very easy to overdo it, so you need to add semolina strictly according to the recipe. Just 2-3 extra teaspoons of cereal can turn a delicious hot sauce into mush.

Breadcrumbs

Thickening the sauce with breadcrumbs is the simplest thing you can think of in the absence of flour. Rusks essentially act like flour, only they need to be added at the very last minutes of cooking. Some of the liquid from the gravy will be absorbed into the filling and the sauce will thicken. Add breadcrumbs carefully to avoid excessive thickness.

History of appearance

Our ancestors began preparing these food additives, using the liquid released from foods during cooking. The first gravies, which are still loved all over the world, appeared in the 16th and 17th centuries.

It all started with French cuisine, which even then contained about 3 thousand different additives. The French introduced the word “sauce” into use, which supplanted the primitive “gravy” from cookbooks.

But the essence remains the same: both the sauce and the gravy are a thick addition to the dish based on a thickener (flour, starch) and juice from cooked foods.

Over the entire existence of the gravy, a lot of recipes have been invented, although there are only a few main ingredients - liquid, flour and onions. But thanks to additional components, it becomes possible to experiment with the taste of the gravy. Now you can find recipes for mushroom, meat, vegetable, cream and other types of gravy. But as before, this additive is prepared as simply as possible; even an inexperienced housewife can handle it.

Animal proteins

In addition to gelatin, other types of animal proteins are also used as thickeners. When heated, their molecules unfold into long chains, which prevent water particles from moving freely.

In high gastronomy, the blood obtained during the initial roasting of meat is especially valued. It is rich in various animal proteins. The famous English chef Heston Blumenthal calls this component the best thickener for sauces and gravies.

And in confectionery you can’t do without yolks. The enzymes in their composition perfectly thicken most creams. However, the proteins in the blood and in the yolks are a capricious component. It is easy to overheat them, then they will begin to connect with each other and form lumps.

Features of the gravy

Professional chefs say: “gravy is everything to us.” The saying is completely justified: with the help of deliciously prepared gravy you can improve the taste of a dish, and even completely change it. This is the main feature of gravy with flour.

It is also noteworthy that this is not just a sauce that can be used to brighten up a finished dish, it is a certain base. By supplementing and improving this base, you can prepare a lot of dishes with polar different tastes. Gravy is a kind of addition that allows you to increase the nutritional and energy value of foods.

In addition, contrary to popular belief, the calorie content of gravy with flour is not so high that one should refuse to eat it. If you prepare the sauce according to the classic recipe, the number of calories will be only 60.

By adding additional ingredients, or diluting the thick sauce with water, you can change this indicator in any direction. Gravy will add variety to your diet and help make dishes more nutritious. You shouldn’t give it up just because of fat and simple carbohydrates.

Edible gelatin

Gelatin is a dry mixture of protein bodies of animal origin that has neither taste nor smell. Its name comes from a Latin word meaning “frozen, frozen.” The composition of gelatin primarily includes collagen, which is a protein substance and is responsible for the main characteristics of this substance.

What is gelatin made from?

It is obtained by digesting tendons, bones, ligaments and other tissues rich in collagen. There is food grade gelatin type A, produced by acid treatment of pig skins, and type B, which is produced by alkaline treatment of cow bones. The first is characterized by a low degree of viscosity and the ability to better retain its shape. There are other types intended for the preparation of medicines, cosmetics, etc.

Application of gelatin

The main use of gelatin: food preparation, namely:

• canned meat and fish;
• jellied products;
• cakes;
• yoghurts;
• candied fruits;
• marmalade;
• ice cream

It is especially common in the preparation of mousses, creams, various confectionery products and ice cream, as it prevents the crystallization of sugar.

The benefit of gelatin is known to be that it complements the value of meat proteins: the amino acid glycine included in its composition (there is little of it in meat itself) has the effect of increasing mental performance. It helps relieve stress, increase stress resistance and improve sleep quality.

Desserts with gelatin are a delicious way to take care of your joints and bones, improve the condition of your skin, hair and nails. It is useful for people with high acidity, as well as those who suffer from low blood clotting.

The properties of gelatin allow it to swell in cold water. It dissolves only when heated, and with prolonged boiling it loses its ability to gel.

We invite you to watch a video showing the preparation of the Italian dessert panacotta using sheet gelatin: