Essential Sauces: From Béchamel to Butter and Tomato Paste Sauce

What turns plain pasta, boiled vegetables or mantı into something memorable is usually the sauce. The good news: learn a handful of basic sauces and hundreds of dishes open up. In this lesson we cover five essentials and what to do when a sauce goes wrong.

1. Béchamel

One of the French "mother sauces", and in Turkish kitchens the backbone of baked pasta, gratins and many moussaka-style dishes.

• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp flour
• 2 cups milk (about 400 ml)
• Salt, pepper, a pinch of nutmeg

1. Melt the butter over medium-low heat and add the flour.
2. Stir constantly for 2-3 minutes. The raw flour smell should give way to a light biscuity aroma, without any colour. This mixture is called a roux.
3. Lower the heat, add the milk a little at a time and whisk hard after each addition.
4. Bring to the boil, stirring constantly, and cook for 3-5 minutes. It is ready when it coats the back of a spoon.
5. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

To avoid lumps: Add cold milk to hot roux, or warm milk to cooled roux, and pour the first addition in slowly.

2. Tomato sauce

The base of pasta dishes, köfte in sauce and many oven bakes.

1. Soften 1 finely chopped onion in 3 tbsp olive oil, add 2 garlic cloves and stir for 1 minute.
2. Add 4-5 grated ripe tomatoes (or 1 tin of chopped tomatoes).
3. Season with salt, pepper and a pinch of sugar; the sugar balances sour winter tomatoes.
4. Simmer for 15-20 minutes, stirring now and then, until thick and the oil separates at the edges.
5. Finish with fresh basil or dried mint.

Out of season, good tinned tomatoes beat pale winter ones.

3. Garlic yoghurt sauce

The most-used sauce in Turkish cooking, from mantı and fried vegetables to çılbır and charred aubergine.

• 1.5 cups strained or full-fat yoghurt
• 1-2 garlic cloves, crushed with salt
• A pinch of salt

Whisk the yoghurt with the garlic and salt. Loosen with a spoonful or two of water if very thick. For hot dishes, keep the yoghurt at room temperature; ice-cold yoghurt instantly chills hot mantı.

If the yoghurt is going to be cooked into a dish (as in yayla soup), whisk it with an egg yolk or a spoonful of flour and temper it by adding hot liquid gradually. That way it will not split.

4. Butter and paste sauce

The red, fragrant sauce poured over mantı, İskender, çılbır and lentil soup.

1. Melt 2-3 tbsp butter in a small pan over medium-low heat.
2. Add 1 tsp tomato or pepper paste and stir for 30-60 seconds, until fragrant and the butter turns red and sizzles.
3. If you like, add 1 tsp chilli flakes and a pinch of dried mint and take it off the heat.
4. Drizzle over the dish while hot.

Careful: Chilli flakes and mint burn very quickly; adding them off the heat is safer. Butter also burns and turns bitter on high heat, so keep it medium-low.

5. Vinaigrette

The classic ratio: 3 parts oil to 1 part acid.

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp vinegar (apple or grape) or lemon juice
• 1 tsp mustard (optional)
• Salt, pepper and, if you like, a little honey or pomegranate molasses

Put everything in a jar, close the lid and shake hard. Mustard helps the oil and vinegar bind. With pomegranate molasses it is perfect on shepherd's salad or gavurdağı salad.

How to thicken a sauce

• Reduce it: Leave it uncovered on low heat; water evaporates and the flavour concentrates. Best for tomato sauces.
• Cornflour slurry: Mix 1 tsp cornflour with 2 tbsp cold water, whisk it into the simmering sauce and cook for 1-2 minutes.
• Butter and flour paste: Rub equal amounts of soft butter and flour together and whisk small pieces into the simmering sauce.
• Finish with butter: Swirling a few cubes of cold butter into a sauce off the heat makes it glossy and slightly thicker.

When a sauce goes wrong

• Lumpy: Whisk hard; if that fails, push it through a sieve or use a stick blender.
• Too thick: Loosen it with a little milk, stock or water.
• Too salty: Dilute with unsalted sauce, water or milk. With yoghurt sauce, simply add more yoghurt.
• Too sour: A pinch of sugar or a knob of butter balances it.
• Flat: Check salt first, then acid. A few drops of lemon are often what is missing.
• Split vinaigrette: Add a teaspoon of mustard to the jar and shake again.

Final word

Once these five sauces are second nature, it gets hard to say "there's nothing in the house". A packet of pasta, a bowl of yoghurt or a few vegetables become a meal with the right sauce.