Bah! Runny sauce!

Mekrel

Mekrel

Mekrel

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As with a lot of people around this time of year, I'm 'dieting' (I say dieting, I want to eat healthier as a long term life style). I bought a Hairy Dieters book late last year and one of the recipes is poached chicken and tarragon sauce.

I say sauce, mine turned out more like soup. I followed the recipe completely but wondered how I should approach it next time? Either the book is wrong, or it is worded badly.

Obviously with a lot of these healthier version of recipes, there's substitutions made from the usual way and in this example the sauce is made by straining the water used to poach the chicken of the tarragon, garlic and lemon peel. It says to end up with 200ml of this warm liquid and then stir in 100ml of crème fraiche.

So what should I do next time? Reduce the liquid by half as it was so runny no matter how much I stired it. My only other thought was the book missed out returning the sauce to heat to thicken? It literally says to strain, discard the tarragon etc and then add in the creme fraiche. I did forget to add in the lemon juice to the sauce but that wouldn't cause it to really thicken?
 
You can add lemon juice to milk to turn it into buttermilk, which does thicken it up, so maybe it would thicken the creme fraiche?

Alternatives would be to reduce the sauce in a pan, or stir in a little cornflower which will thicken the sauce.
 
probably have to be careful not to boil creme-fraiche, otherwise may split ?

I would probably make bechmel to thicken it .. creme fraiche is still quite calorie rich .. practically as nice as double cream on a pudding
 
Steampunk said:
You can add lemon juice to milk to turn it into buttermilk, which does thicken it up, so maybe it would thicken the creme fraiche?

Alternatives would be to reduce the sauce in a pan, or stir in a little cornflower which will thicken the sauce.
Click to expand...

I'll try it again without forgetting the lemon this time. I guess it'll be trial and error! If the lemon doesn't work then maybe reduce it or use less liquid.

jpaul said:
probably have to be careful not to boil creme-fraiche, otherwise may split ?

I would probably make bechmel to thicken it .. creme fraiche is still quite calorie rich .. practically as nice as double cream on a pudding
Click to expand...

Ahh it could be the heat, it said to heat the water to reduce it down to 200ml so it was pretty hot. It was a 'healthier' version of crème fraiche as per the recipe.

Thanks gents!
 
Most recipes for stews etc. neglect to add any type of thickening agent which is annoying. I tend to coat the meat lightly in flour before browning, then that helps once it cooks in the sauce. I'd rather do that than cornflour near the end, because cornflour tends to change the look and flavour too much.

You could try rubbing a teaspoon of proper button around in some flour, as much as you can whilst holding it together. Putting that in the sauce at the end helps thicken and also helps give a nice glaze. A little butter never hurt anyone :)
 
you can (i do) make bechemel/roux with spreadable 50%butter/50%rapeseed, <1tbs , <50calories, and, wholewheat flour, 1:4 ratio....
so i'm not convinced low fat creme fraiche is necessarily healthier ? - than cornflour, as well.
creme fraiche is definitely more expensive, too
 
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