Successful Signature Sauces

Prepared Foods, Oct, 2001 by Laura A. Brandt

Developing a sauce with that special "something" takes skill in blending flavors and stabilizers.

Recall a favorite meal you had recently...whether it was a pasta dish, chicken, or even macaroni and cheese, chances are that the sauce made it memorable.

"Sauces are the source of flavor--that is what makes consumers like or dislike a product," says Lucien Vendome, senior executive chef, Kraft Food Ingredients, Memphis, Tenn. "The more components you add into a sauce, the more appetizing it is; however, balancing ingredients can get complicated in manufacturing conditions."

Successfully blending flavorful ingredients into a sauce base involves factors such as the order of addition, marrying or blending flavors together, using texturizing agents and processing conditions.

In this article, a chef, an applications specialist, a stabilizer expert and a sauce manufacturer help us to understand the criteria for formulating "signature sauces."

Going for the Gold

The first step in successfully developing a sauce in a manufacturing environment involves creating a gold standard.

"When you develop a gold standard, everyone understands the key components--it's easier to work toward your end goal," says Vendome.

Standard sauces, whether prepared by one chef or a culinary team, are typically created from stocks and fresh herbs for flavor, and may be thickened by blending in a roux, a mixture of flour and butter.

As a formula is scaled-up and is required to meet processing and shelf life requirements, food formulators can use flavoring agents and bases that contain desirable notes such as meat juices, roasted flavors, and mirepoix-a vegetable blend of carrots, onions, and celery. While sauteeing mushrooms may take some time and a great deal of raw material, simply adding commercial flavors make the formulator's job easier.

"One of the key elements in creating a signature sauce is using ingredients that taste like they have been cooking and blending together for a long time through a particular cooking method," says Vendome. A cooking technique ties ingredients together. Adding ingredients in stages and cooking them with a specific technique, gives them a flavor profile that is built in a vertical instead of horizontal fashion, he adds.

Happily, the flavors derived from cooking techniques such as roasting, sauteeing, stir-frying or grilling, no longer take time to prepare.

Instead, flavorings and concentrated flavor bases that contain these notes can be used to add depth and uniqueness.

From Taste to Texture

Using a roux or corn-starch for texture will not work in commercial sauces. Industrial texturizing ingredients help control viscosity, emulsify, suspend particles, prevent separation during storage and improve sensory properties--such as body and cling.

A growing manufacturing industry trend in signature sauces is cold-processing, which saves equipment, energy, labor and time. Many sauces go through a high-shear processing step (colloid mill or high shear mixing) that can tax the stabilizer system.

Xanthan gum, the workhorse of the stabilizers, provides thickening and stabilizing power in hot or cold processed sauces. "Xanthan is excellent in freeze-thaw conditions due to its water-binding capacity and ability to maintain its textural properties under acid conditions and at high temperatures," says Susan Gurkin, applications manager for Degussa Texturant Systems, Atlanta, Ga.

Hydrocolloids are often blended together to achieve various textural effects or to increase stability, optimal flowability, uniform consistency and cost efficiency. Xanthan, for example, is often combined with guar gum or other hydrocolloids. High concentrations of xanthan can form very elastic solutions with irregular flow. Guar in combination with xanthan will solve the elasticity problem.

Suppliers recommend that hydrocolloids are predispersed with the dry ingredients to keep the particles separate to avoid fast hydration, or they can be predispersed into an oil slurry. (For more detail, type "taming texture" into the keyword search field at www.PreparedFoods.com.)

Adding the Signature

Low levels of spices and seasonings, fruits, vinegar, wine or soy sauce can add that special zing. "A sauce should be complex and have depth--if not, it will be boring," says Vendome.

Some companies strive to relieve palatal boredom. Such is the case with formulators at HVJ International, Spring, Texas, creators of a wide variety of signature sauces that includes Strawberry Chipotle Sauce and Cilantro/Basil Marinara.

Tastes have changed dramatically in this country over the past decade. "Ten years ago no one was talking about cilantro or chipotle-based products in the U.S.," says Hank Van Joslin, president of HVJ International.

"While standard salsas, marinades and sauces still sell well, formulators are building on them to create their own unique flavor blends."

Take, for example, HVJ's Spicy Jones "Sauce It" Steak Sauce, which took years of product development. Ingredients include a blend of soy sauce, ketchup, sherry wine, Worcestershire sauce, fresh bell pepper tamarind, grapefruit juice, and papaya.