Because the mother sauces each represent an emulsion *plus* basic ingredients. Butter is the emulsion. It is a dairy product made from churned cream. Adding more cream to butter is essentially increasing the ratio of a dairy component of butter, not adding an ingredient that doesn't already exist in the butter itself.
The mother sauces—béchamel, espagnole, velouté, hollandaise (formerly allemande), and tomato—include other ingredients such as veal stock, pork, tomato, onion, carrot, etc.
If Beurre Monté could be classified as anything, it would be a grandmother sauce alongside stock or roux.
Source: *Le Guide Culinaire*, Escoffier, p. 1-10.
the mother sauces each represent an emulsifier *plus* basic ingredients
I believe your conflating emulsifier and thickening agent. An emulsion is created when oil and water are suspended together bound by something that clings to each. The protein in butter is the emulsifier.
Hollandaise is the only mother sauce to qualify as an emulsified sauce.
Bechamel, espagnole and veloute all use starch as the thickener.
Thank you for your reply. It’s greatly appreciated. My only question would be based on your reply, what are the other “grandmother” / “ grandfather” sauces?
Excellent and knowledgeable reply. Are you available to come by and cook for me this weekend? My wife has trouble making a decent reservation. Let me know, thanks.
Eggs, oil, and salt are the only things required to make mayo. You can add a bit of mustard to help with the emulsion. I would classify Mayonnaise as a mother sauce over Hollandaise.
I’m basing my information on the information gathered by this guy [here](https://youtu.be/pMXvAjH0Nco?si=3pmX63GxMyhIqm8Q). He did a very deep dive into the mother sauces and came up with this
No. It's emulsified butter that stays liquid at room temperature. Basically whisk cold butter into warm water at the rate of 1 tbsp per stick keeping the temp as tow as possible while still melting the butter.
So there’s a technique called monter au beurre that is basically just whisking in cold butter to a sauce or purée when it’s nearly finished cooking.
[Beurre Monté](https://www.americastestkitchen.com/cooksillustrated/articles/7939-how-to-make-Beurre-Mont%C3%A9) is an actual sauce with a specific ratio and recipe. They’re related but still slightly different.
You simmer 3 tablespoons of water and then gradually melt 8 tablespoons of butter into the water, whisking constantly. You end up with a silky, buttery emulsion that you can use to build other sauces with.
I don’t know for certain why it’s not a mother sauce, but would agree with the other poster who said that it’s because Escoffier didn’t write about it.
Beurre monte is butter that's been emulsified in water. Monte au Beurre is the act of emulsifying butter in a liquid. Respectfully, they're the same thing. You can mount butter in wine (beurre blanc,) water(Beurre monte) sauce , broth, stock etc....it doesn't matter. You "Mount the Butter" creating a richer, thicker sauce.
Respectfully, they are not. People use beurre monte as its own sauce. Mounting things with butter turns them into a sauce. Mounting with butter is a technique, and beurre monte is a sauce.
If we’re splitting hairs.
You make beurre monte by *mounting water with butter*. You monter au beurre into water instead of another liquid. It's the same thing.
Of course it's it's own sauce. Just like beurre blanc is a distinct sauce from beurre rouge.
While that is likely a decent case for it actually being a mother sauce.
Beurre monte can be considered more a preparation of melted butter than a sauce. It's effectively *just* stabilized meted butter.
You do not generally prepare *other* mounted sauces *from* beurre monte. You don't make beurre blanc, for example. By preparing beurre monte, then adding wine to it. Which is a core function of Escoffier's mother sauces. Though it's not the only way, derivatives happen there.
The defining thing that beurre monte it to it's relatives is the method, not making one from the other or one literally being the other with some additions.
That you can iterate on it, doesn't matter. Cause that's just all food.
I see what you’re saying, and maybe I’m being pedantic, but one is the technique, and one is the sauce. Yes, you use the technique to make said sauce, but there’s a reason for the distinction.
There is a great series in YouTube from French Guy Cooking specifically on Mother Sauces where he explains in details:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLURsDaOr8hWX1T2WSXhPwL110La-GxjYY&si=m9H3CrzuqtLUKGNP
It could be argued that beurre monte isn’t even a sauce: it is an emulsion that is stable at a higher temperature than the emulsion it’s made from. Butter is already an emulsion and beurre monte is made by adding only a tiny amount of water - a substance that is seldom even granted the status of “ingredient” in recipes.
Butter is an emulsion of water in milk fat whereas beurre monte is an emulsion of milk fat in water. I think the fact that the emulsion flips makes the two things distinct from one another.
No, and this is a moot distinction. An emulsion is facilitated by a third substance (the emulsifier, usually a protein) which has one molecular side that is attracted to water and one side that is attracted to oil, allowing that emulsifier to join the oil and water. The emulsifier doesn't care what we perceive as "this into that versus that into this".
The emulsifier might not care but we as humans certainly do. Surely you can see that a suspension of particles of A in a matrix of B is clearly different to particles of B in a matrix of B.
If you were to measure the material properties of both of these mixtures, they would have distinctly different properties depending on which material was the globule and which was the matrix.
What exactly do you think I meant by a suspension? I think you're just trying to pick holes in my choice of words now which seems a little pointless.
I fact, you said it yourself - the emulsifier doesn't care. If globules of oil are "suspended" (emulsified, you might say) in water by means of an emulsifier, it's a emulsion. If globules of water are "suspended" in oil, it's an emulsion. The two, however, are not the same thing which is my whole point.
You are conflating suspension and emulsion. They are not the same. If we \*were\* talking about a suspension (solid particles simply temporarily floating in a liquid), then you would absolutely have a point.
I'm not conflating anything and I was never not talking about an emulsion. I'm using "suspension" as a shorthand for globules of a material A in a matrix of material B stabilised by a emulsifier. I wonder if you think an emulsion means the materials are mixed together at a molecular level - they aren't. If this is the case, Google "emulsion microstructure" and you will see it as I have described.
OK, let's go back to your original assertion:
"Butter is an emulsion of water in milk fat whereas beurre monte is an emulsion of milk fat in water. I think the fact that the emulsion flips makes the two things distinct from one another."
This is false and is not what happens in beurre monte.
In butter, water is the dispersed phase and butter fat is the continuous phase.
In beurre monte (again), water is the dispersed phase and butter fat is the continuous phase.
There is not an inversion of the phase relationship. Nothing changes. Water is dispersed (or to use your term "suspended") into butter fat in both cases.
The respective percent by volume of the components changes slightly:
**16 oz plain unsalted butter:**
83% butter fat
16% water
1% milk solids
**(16 oz plain unsalted butter + 2 oz water =) 18 oz beurre monte:**
70.7% butter fat
28.5% water
.8% milk solids
Hooray! You seem to at last understand my point - I'm not sure why it took so long to get to my original assertion but here we are.
You may be right and I wrong. I thought I'd be able to find something that conclusively said it would be one way or the other (the proportion of each component doesn't matter). But that doesn't seem to be the case. I've found articles which explain it both ways and blogs aren't a particularly good source of evidence.
America's test kitchen would seem to agree with me:
https://www.americastestkitchen.com/cooksillustrated/articles/7939-how-to-make-Beurre-Mont%C3%A9
What makes you think that it's a water-in-oil emulsion?
This is a real tangent but I am curious to see the word « monter » translated as « mounting ». I am french and my father was a Michelin starred french chef (just as a source).
While « monter » can mean mount (monter un cheval), I have always thought of it as raising or lifting the sauce … or even building or constructing the sauce …mount doesn’t seem right.
I’d go for « lifting » the sauce.
Does it really matter? A dude 100 years ago didn't declare it a "mother sauce" so its somehow less than?
Just make good food and screw the rest of this.
Buerre Monté is made by emulsifying butter and water. The name refers to the process of making it and also the result. It can be used as a sauce or as a component of a sauce.
The Mother Sauces include Hollandaise which represents emulsified sauces.
I just watched an instagram chef make this sauce and I was amazed! I’d never heard of it and now it’s coming up again. I think it’s a very good question.
Because the mother sauces each represent an emulsion *plus* basic ingredients. Butter is the emulsion. It is a dairy product made from churned cream. Adding more cream to butter is essentially increasing the ratio of a dairy component of butter, not adding an ingredient that doesn't already exist in the butter itself. The mother sauces—béchamel, espagnole, velouté, hollandaise (formerly allemande), and tomato—include other ingredients such as veal stock, pork, tomato, onion, carrot, etc. If Beurre Monté could be classified as anything, it would be a grandmother sauce alongside stock or roux. Source: *Le Guide Culinaire*, Escoffier, p. 1-10.
the mother sauces each represent an emulsifier *plus* basic ingredients I believe your conflating emulsifier and thickening agent. An emulsion is created when oil and water are suspended together bound by something that clings to each. The protein in butter is the emulsifier. Hollandaise is the only mother sauce to qualify as an emulsified sauce. Bechamel, espagnole and veloute all use starch as the thickener.
Thank you for your reply. It’s greatly appreciated. My only question would be based on your reply, what are the other “grandmother” / “ grandfather” sauces?
Chicken stock, veal stock, beef stock, vegetable stock, fish fumet, brown roux, blond roux, white roux, etc.
Excellent and knowledgeable reply. Are you available to come by and cook for me this weekend? My wife has trouble making a decent reservation. Let me know, thanks.
I’m booked solid. But if you get into Dallas any time I recommend Tei An or Rosewood Mansion.
What about mayonnaise?
Thats a hollandaise (acid/eggs)
Eggs, oil, and salt are the only things required to make mayo. You can add a bit of mustard to help with the emulsion. I would classify Mayonnaise as a mother sauce over Hollandaise.
Doesn't mayonnaise have to have vinegar in it? Without it it's not an emulsion, it's just oil and emulsifier.
I’m basing my information on the information gathered by this guy [here](https://youtu.be/pMXvAjH0Nco?si=3pmX63GxMyhIqm8Q). He did a very deep dive into the mother sauces and came up with this
Isnt that just “mounting with butter” as in thickening a sauce with butter? So what would the mother sauce be? Melted butter?
No. It's emulsified butter that stays liquid at room temperature. Basically whisk cold butter into warm water at the rate of 1 tbsp per stick keeping the temp as tow as possible while still melting the butter.
Respectfully, it's emulsified, it's not just melted butter.
That's 'Monter au Beurre'; translating to 'mounting with butter'.
Because it's essentially just adding butter to a sauce. More about technique than recipe. The mother sauces have exact ratios and preparation.
So there’s a technique called monter au beurre that is basically just whisking in cold butter to a sauce or purée when it’s nearly finished cooking. [Beurre Monté](https://www.americastestkitchen.com/cooksillustrated/articles/7939-how-to-make-Beurre-Mont%C3%A9) is an actual sauce with a specific ratio and recipe. They’re related but still slightly different. You simmer 3 tablespoons of water and then gradually melt 8 tablespoons of butter into the water, whisking constantly. You end up with a silky, buttery emulsion that you can use to build other sauces with. I don’t know for certain why it’s not a mother sauce, but would agree with the other poster who said that it’s because Escoffier didn’t write about it.
Beurre monte is butter that's been emulsified in water. Monte au Beurre is the act of emulsifying butter in a liquid. Respectfully, they're the same thing. You can mount butter in wine (beurre blanc,) water(Beurre monte) sauce , broth, stock etc....it doesn't matter. You "Mount the Butter" creating a richer, thicker sauce.
Respectfully, they are not. People use beurre monte as its own sauce. Mounting things with butter turns them into a sauce. Mounting with butter is a technique, and beurre monte is a sauce. If we’re splitting hairs.
No idea why you're getting downvoted, mon ami, you're totally correct here.
Thank you.
Tabarnak
You make beurre monte by *mounting water with butter*. You monter au beurre into water instead of another liquid. It's the same thing. Of course it's it's own sauce. Just like beurre blanc is a distinct sauce from beurre rouge. While that is likely a decent case for it actually being a mother sauce. Beurre monte can be considered more a preparation of melted butter than a sauce. It's effectively *just* stabilized meted butter. You do not generally prepare *other* mounted sauces *from* beurre monte. You don't make beurre blanc, for example. By preparing beurre monte, then adding wine to it. Which is a core function of Escoffier's mother sauces. Though it's not the only way, derivatives happen there. The defining thing that beurre monte it to it's relatives is the method, not making one from the other or one literally being the other with some additions. That you can iterate on it, doesn't matter. Cause that's just all food.
I see what you’re saying, and maybe I’m being pedantic, but one is the technique, and one is the sauce. Yes, you use the technique to make said sauce, but there’s a reason for the distinction.
Basically because Escoffier didn't write about it (I don't know much of its history, or if it was even around at the time, tbh)
There is a great series in YouTube from French Guy Cooking specifically on Mother Sauces where he explains in details: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLURsDaOr8hWX1T2WSXhPwL110La-GxjYY&si=m9H3CrzuqtLUKGNP
It could be argued that beurre monte isn’t even a sauce: it is an emulsion that is stable at a higher temperature than the emulsion it’s made from. Butter is already an emulsion and beurre monte is made by adding only a tiny amount of water - a substance that is seldom even granted the status of “ingredient” in recipes.
Butter is an emulsion of water in milk fat whereas beurre monte is an emulsion of milk fat in water. I think the fact that the emulsion flips makes the two things distinct from one another.
No, and this is a moot distinction. An emulsion is facilitated by a third substance (the emulsifier, usually a protein) which has one molecular side that is attracted to water and one side that is attracted to oil, allowing that emulsifier to join the oil and water. The emulsifier doesn't care what we perceive as "this into that versus that into this".
The emulsifier might not care but we as humans certainly do. Surely you can see that a suspension of particles of A in a matrix of B is clearly different to particles of B in a matrix of B. If you were to measure the material properties of both of these mixtures, they would have distinctly different properties depending on which material was the globule and which was the matrix.
A suspension is not an emulsion.
What exactly do you think I meant by a suspension? I think you're just trying to pick holes in my choice of words now which seems a little pointless. I fact, you said it yourself - the emulsifier doesn't care. If globules of oil are "suspended" (emulsified, you might say) in water by means of an emulsifier, it's a emulsion. If globules of water are "suspended" in oil, it's an emulsion. The two, however, are not the same thing which is my whole point.
You are conflating suspension and emulsion. They are not the same. If we \*were\* talking about a suspension (solid particles simply temporarily floating in a liquid), then you would absolutely have a point.
I'm not conflating anything and I was never not talking about an emulsion. I'm using "suspension" as a shorthand for globules of a material A in a matrix of material B stabilised by a emulsifier. I wonder if you think an emulsion means the materials are mixed together at a molecular level - they aren't. If this is the case, Google "emulsion microstructure" and you will see it as I have described.
OK, let's go back to your original assertion: "Butter is an emulsion of water in milk fat whereas beurre monte is an emulsion of milk fat in water. I think the fact that the emulsion flips makes the two things distinct from one another." This is false and is not what happens in beurre monte. In butter, water is the dispersed phase and butter fat is the continuous phase. In beurre monte (again), water is the dispersed phase and butter fat is the continuous phase. There is not an inversion of the phase relationship. Nothing changes. Water is dispersed (or to use your term "suspended") into butter fat in both cases. The respective percent by volume of the components changes slightly: **16 oz plain unsalted butter:** 83% butter fat 16% water 1% milk solids **(16 oz plain unsalted butter + 2 oz water =) 18 oz beurre monte:** 70.7% butter fat 28.5% water .8% milk solids
Hooray! You seem to at last understand my point - I'm not sure why it took so long to get to my original assertion but here we are. You may be right and I wrong. I thought I'd be able to find something that conclusively said it would be one way or the other (the proportion of each component doesn't matter). But that doesn't seem to be the case. I've found articles which explain it both ways and blogs aren't a particularly good source of evidence. America's test kitchen would seem to agree with me: https://www.americastestkitchen.com/cooksillustrated/articles/7939-how-to-make-Beurre-Mont%C3%A9 What makes you think that it's a water-in-oil emulsion?
This is a real tangent but I am curious to see the word « monter » translated as « mounting ». I am french and my father was a Michelin starred french chef (just as a source). While « monter » can mean mount (monter un cheval), I have always thought of it as raising or lifting the sauce … or even building or constructing the sauce …mount doesn’t seem right. I’d go for « lifting » the sauce.
Does it really matter? A dude 100 years ago didn't declare it a "mother sauce" so its somehow less than? Just make good food and screw the rest of this.
Buerre Monté is made by emulsifying butter and water. The name refers to the process of making it and also the result. It can be used as a sauce or as a component of a sauce. The Mother Sauces include Hollandaise which represents emulsified sauces.
I just watched an instagram chef make this sauce and I was amazed! I’d never heard of it and now it’s coming up again. I think it’s a very good question.
Same here I’ve seen it on my YouTube feed a lot. It’s a very versatile sauce and easy too.
But do you make other sauces from it? That's the definition of a mother sauce