Everyone knows that the secret to great dishes is in the sauce. A great chef can spend years perfecting a single sauce. Although a few secret ingredients can distinguish a sauce and therefore a dish, the base usually starts with a simple roux or base (flour and butter or oil heated together as a thickening agent). Once the roux is established, the rest depends on whatever additional ingredients the chef decides to add. The French in particular have perfected this process.

French cooking begins by learning the 5 “mother” sauces that make up the basis for all French dishes: Béchamel, Velouté, Espagnole, Tomat, and Hollandaise. Once one masters these five, experimentation can begin.

What is thrown into the roux becomes for every well-known chef his or her “signature” sauce. Of course, every…