I've only been at this for a week, but I've tried to make a sauce every night this week and am certainly making a failure every time. I understand that a Roux is butter or fat and flour. I read that a Veloute is a Roux plus stock, so I tried a recipe for Chicken Pot Pie just to see the beginning stage (6 tbsp butter and 1 c. flour to make the Roux and then add 3 c. chicken stock to basically get the Veloute sauce. I finished the whole recipe but the sauce was 'pasty' and lifeless at best and not creamy, smooth and delicious like I had hoped. Also, my pan sauces are a disaster, I am getting sauces but they are lumpy and just not cool.

I'm resting for the weekend because it is so frustrating, but I'll be back to it again next week.

Do you have any suggestions on how I could start with the very most simplest sauce, be it Bechamel or Veloute, or something else, I don't care, I just want to make something that accomplishes a success.

The only good sauce I have ever made that I like is just to melt butter in a dish to dip Lobster into.

Hi Ken, first off let me say good job for the effort. Learning to cook does take plenty of practice so you are on the right track.

When you say "I read that a Veloute is a Roux etc. etc.", does this mean that you have watched and perhaps even watched more than once, the lesson on Veloute? Also, did you do the prerequisites for the lesson? Did you go to the practice tab that has the recipe for a basic veloute sauce? This is a great place to start.

I would also like to mention that it is better not to start a new forum thread each time you have a question. Rather it is better to ask you sauce question in the related sauce lesson. In this case it may have been better to ask your question in the discussion tab under the veloute lesson. This way all students can learn from your question. Some of them may even be able to give you feedback on their experiences as well.

Keep at it Ken, together we will get you there. Cheers!

Dawn T, I am so new to this, your help is helping me not only get to the right lesson, but also showing my how to use this site properly. I'm off to a wobbly start, but as you say: "together we will get you there."