Mother Sauces Extended: Bercy / Hungarian Sauce

Mandatory Credit: Pan Pacific

We finished our look at the secondary sauces that can be made from a Bechamel and moved on to the veloute sauce. Today we continue our journey through the veloute sauce and look at the Bercy Sauce and the Hungarian Sauce.

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The Bercy sauce is another finished sauce that goes with fish and seafood dishes as it uses the fish veloute base. It also uses both white wine and shallots as its main components.

So we don’t get confused, there is also another sauce called a Bercy sauce but uses a demi-glace as its base so it would be used with roasts and steaks rather than seafood.

The Bercy sauce is made by taking the white wine and shallots and sauteing the shallots in a heavy bottomed pan. Bring to a boil and then lower temp until wine has reduced by half. Then add the fish veloute and simmer and reduce for another 5 minutes. Stir in 1 T butter, and 1 T chopped parsley. Add lemon juice to taste and you have your seafood Bercy sauce.

The next sauce that we will look at is the Hungarian Sauce. The Hungarian sauce Is made by reducing white wine and sauteing onions and paprika. The Hungarian sauce is going to be made using a chicken or veal veloute which will make it the perfect pairing for a roasted chicken dish.

For the Hungarian, to start you will need to melt a tablespoon of butter, add the onions and paprika and allow to saute for about 5 minutes. Add a 1/2 cup of white wine and bring to a boil. Reduce the liquid by half. Add the veloute , bring back to a boil, and then reduce the temp to a simmer. Let simmer for about 10 minutes and then strain the liquid. It is ready to serve right away.

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