You may rework a runny sauce right into a lush sauce by incorporating a liaison. In culinary phrases, a liaison might be chilly butter and flour (“beurre manie”), roux, or a slurry of cornstarch or arrowroot that’s added to a sauce as a thickening agent. One other regularly used liaison is a blended combination of one-part egg yolk to three-parts heavy cream. When the liaison is slowly added to the recent sauce, the eggs coagulate and thicken the sauce, and along with the cream, add a wealthy velvety texture. A liaison improves the consistency of the sauce and in addition permits the flavors of the sauce to cling to your tongue and palate, thus rising your enjoyment of what you are consuming.

Making a liaison is not tough, however it may be just a little tough as a result of improperly executed, the sauce might break down, and you may wind up with scrambled eggs. As soon as you’ve got crushed the egg yolk and heavy cream collectively, you may must mood the liaison earlier than including it to the sauce. Tempering is the method of step by step combining a sizzling ingredient with a chilly ingredient to extend its temperature, which is able to stop curdling. To mood the liaison, whisk collectively just a little of the recent sauce into the crushed eggs and cream. Hold whisking as you add just a little extra sizzling sauce, then decrease the warmth to low, and slowly pour the liaison into the sauce, continually stirring, till the sauce thickens.

The phrase “liaison” first appeared in English within the 1640s and means “union” or “binding collectively,” which describes what it does for the broth-based sauces of white stews (“blanquettes”), like traditional veal blanquette and hen blanquette. Two wealthy sauces — Allemande and Normandy — are made by including a liaison to a velouté, one of many 5 mom sauces of French delicacies. Velouté begins as a blond roux with hen, veal, or fish inventory whisked in till it binds collectively as a sauce, and with a couple of gildings, it is usually served as a gravy. 

Allemande sauce (additionally known as “German sauce”) begins off as a velouté that has been flavored with lemon juice, salt, pepper, and nutmeg, which is then enriched with the egg-cream liaison. Relying on the kind of inventory that’s used, Allemande sauce might be served with hen, veal, fish, eggs, or greens. Normandy sauce, which is most frequently a sauce for fish and seafood, begins as velouté that is made with fish inventory. Chopped mushrooms are added, after which the sauce is thickened with the egg-cream liaison. Like Allemande sauce, Normandy sauce could be very wealthy and could be particularly scrumptious spooned over lobster tails.

A liaison is not only for thickening savory sauces; it could additionally repair a runny chocolate mousse. The liaison is folded into the chocolate combination, and when cooled and whipped, the mousse may have thickened to fluffy heights.