Learn what makes a recipe tick, says How to Cook Without a Book author Pam Anderson, and you'll serve great food fast. Recognizing that most cooks feel challenged in the face of daily meal making, Anderson provides a game plan: prepare dishes based on available ingredients and simple cooking techniques you've mastered--not on recipes you've got to look up and ingredients you'll need to shop for--and you maximize the potential of kitchen ease.
Pan sauces are the simplest and most natural way to flavor a chicken cutlet, fish fillet, pork chop, or steak. Many classic pan sauce recipes, however, require the reduction of fairly large quantities of wine, stock, juice, or cream, tacking on ten minutes or more to an otherwise quick dish. Unless the sauteed meat, fish, or poultry is held in a warm oven, it often become soggy and cold by the time the sauce is done. In addition, many pan sauces are enriched and thickened with large quantities of butter or heavy cream. I don't mind the extra time or calories for a special meal, but for weeknights, I want a sauce that is flavorful, quick, and light.
A classic pan sauce often starts with sauteing garlic or shallots in the empty skillet. To speed up the process, I eliminate that step. While there's hardly a pan sauce that wouldn't benefit from a little shallot or garlic, for time's sake I usually leave them out. In the few sauces where garlic is crucial, I simply add it along with the liquid and let it soften while the liquid is reducing.
To transform chicken stock, juice, or wine from a thin liquid to a thicker sauce, it must be reduced by at least half. Reducing 1 1/2 or 2 cups of liquid--the quantity called for in many recipes--takes more time and effort than I usually have on a Tuesday night. Plus, we just don't need a quarter cup of rich sauce per person for a family meal. I've found that 1/2 cup of liquid reduces to the proper consistency in just a couple of minutes. With flavorful additions like capers or dried fruit and a modest amount of butter for enrichment, there is an overflowing tablespoon of flavorful sauce for each person-more than enough for a weeknight dinner.
Liquids such as low-sodium chicken broth and orange juice and sweet fortified wines such as marsala, madeira, sweet vermouth, and port make fine sauces on their own. Reduce 1/2 cup of any of these liquids in a pan of chicken drippings and you'll get a good sauce. Acidic liquids, however, need taming. A sauce made from straight lemon juice or vinegar, for example, is too harsh. For these, use six tablespoons of chicken broth, sweet fortified wine, or fruit juice for every two tablespoons of lemon juice or vinegar (for a total of 1/2 cup of liquid).
Though not harsh, pan sauces made with straight red or white wine taste weak, sour, and off kilter. Cutting the wine with an equal amount of low-sodium chicken broth balances the sauce. For wine sauces use 1/4 cup each chicken broth and wine (for a total of 1/2 cup liquid). And if making a red wine pan sauce, it benefits from other flavorings as well.
There are, of course, exceptions to the rule. Asian-style Sweet-and-Sour Sauce calls for 1/4 cup chicken broth, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, and 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar rather than 6 tablespoons chicken broth and 2 tablespoons vinegar (but still a total of 1/2 cup liquid).
When using two different liquids in a pan sauce, some recipes call for reducing one liquid before adding the other. Not these. While the chicken sautes, measure all the pan sauce ingredients into a measuring cup and pour them into the skillet where they simmer together.
How quickly the sauce reduces depends on the heat and heaviness of the pan. If the skillet is hot and heavy-duty, the liquid reduces almost as soon as it hits the pan. In a cooler skillet the reduction may take a couple of minutes. Once the sauce reduces to 1/4 cup -- don't measure, just eyeball it -- it's time to add a little butter or cream.
While I want my pan sauce to be light, I find that a pan sauce without a little fat is brash and intense. Not only does butter, heavy cream, or olive oil enrich and soften flavors, it also thickens the sauce and gives it much-needed body. A small amount of sauce, however, requires only a small amount of butter. Just one miraculous tablespoon of butter or olive oil (or two tablespoons of heavy cream) takes a sauce from puckery to pleasant.
HOW TO MAKE A PAN SAUCE
Measure pan sauce ingredients in a measuring cup (liquid always totals 1/2 cup).
Pour liquid into hot skillet once meat, poultry, or fish has been removed.
Reduce liquid to 1/4 cup.
Tilt the skillet and whisk in butter or cream, and spoon over each portion and serve.
