For Parties Around the Holiday Season, You May Want to Dress Up Some of Your Favorite Dishes With a Lush and Sumptuous Sauce.

That doesn't have to mean making stock from veal bones or simmering liquids on the stove for hours.

More and more cooks are experimenting with sauces made from pureed vegetables or caramelized fruit. Even those famous French chefs have found shortcuts to make their renowned and revered demiglace.

Chef James Peterson, author of Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making (John Wiley & Sons, 2nd edition, 1998, $44.95), the first edition of which won the prestigious James Beard Cookbook of the Year award, said a sauce can be as simple as pan juices boiled down with some wine or cream.

Peterson says in most modern kitchens, a cream sauce is just lightly reduced cream. You can make a sun-dried tomato cream sauce by taking a quart of cream and heating it, then adding 10 or 12 sun-dried tomatoes that have been plumped in boiling water and chopped. Let the tomatoes infuse their flavor into the cream for about 20 minutes on a low simmer. Then strain the sauce, or not, and pour it over pork loin, pasta or chicken.

"It amazes people," Peterson said.

Still, there are some basic techniques you need to know before jumping into the sauce pot. Most sauces start simply with a saute of herbs or vegetables, such as shallots or celery, to form a flavor base. Then wine or broth is whisked in and boiled down, letting much of the liquid evaporate. Then more broth or cream is whisked in and boiled down. This technique is called reduction.

When liquids, such as broth, wine or pan juices, are reduced, they create a more intense flavor or combination of flavors and have a thicker texture. The famed bearnaise sauce is simply hollandaise infused with a tarragon, shallot and white-wine reduction. A French demiglace is dramatic reduction of a veal or beef stock that may then be thickened with a flour and butter roux.

"As long as you have that technique, you can do a thousand variations," said Cheryl Merser, author of Relax! It's Only Dinner ... ($16.95, Fireside, 1995). "Once you have the sauce anchored by a reduction, you can really go anywhere with it."

To make easy pan sauces, another important technique is deglazing. When meat cooks, its juices leave highly flavorful browned bits in the pan. A good sauce base comes from pouring off the fat from the pan, adding shallots and wine or broth and heating the pan over medium-high heat. As the liquid reduces, scrape the sides to collect the caramelized bits, and reduce it down to a nice thickness, adding broth or wine if you like. Nonstick pans are to be avoided because the meat bits don't stay in the pan as well.

One major issue in sauce-making is stock. Chefs say the best stock is homemade but acknowledge the home cook may not have time.

They warn that broth found in supermarkets is better suited for soups than sauces because it does not have the natural gelatin that comes from bones so it won't help thicken a sauce.

Also, standard broths can have a lot of sodium, which means that when they are reduced the salt flavor is heightened. It is not the end of the world to use a supermarket broth, but chefs say to make sure it is a low-sodium version and you probably will have to thicken the sauce with cornstarch, flour, butter or cream.

"If it's salty and it's reduced to its original form, it will be inedible," said Glenn May, chef at A Cook's Table, the Federal Hill kitchen store, who recently taught a series of classes on how to make classic French sauces. "There are good stocks out there; just make sure they are very-low- or no-sodium. Just read the label."

Many gourmet stores now offer veal, beef or chicken stock bases that are good for sauces. The French demiglace can be made in a few whisks with Demi-Glace Gold, a product made by a company called More Than Gourmet, which is recommended by Peterson.

The sauce base, along with many others including chicken stock and classic French brown sauce, is also sold on the Web: www.morethangourmet.com. A 1 1/2 -ounce container costs about $4, and a 16-ounce container costs about $28. It looks like a velvety glaze, keeps in the refrigerator and can be used one tablespoon at a time.

Other companies that make sauce bases are Aramont, available in stores, and L.J. Minor, available at www.soupbase.com.

Orange and Ginger Sauce

For poultry or wild fowl

Makes 1 1/2 cups

1 tablespoon butter

1/4 cup chopped shallots or scallions

3/4 cup chopped mushrooms

1 cup dry white wine

2 tablespoons chopped fresh ginger

3 cups chicken stock (optional)

3/4 cup fresh orange juice

3/4 cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon grated orange zest

fresh lemon juice to taste (optional)

salt and pepper

Melt butter in saucepan over medium heat. Add the shallots or scallions and the mushrooms and cook, stirring, until very lightly browned. Increase the heat to high and add the wine and ginger.

Boil until reduced by half. Add the stock and the orange juice and continue to boil until reduced by half. Add the cream and continue to cook until the sauce reaches a nice consistency.

Strain it, and add in the orange zest, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

- Adapted from "The All New All Purpose Joy of Cooking"

Broccoli Rape Pesto

Serve over grilled lamb chops

Serves 4

1 bunch broccoli rape

4 sliced garlic cloves

2 tablespoons capers, rinsed and drained

2 anchovy fillets, soaked in milk for 20 minutes and rinsed

1 cup brown chicken stock (see note)

3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Bring 3 quarts of water to a boil and set up an ice bath in the sink or nearby. Take the broccoli rape and blanch it in the boiling water until tender, about 2 minutes. Drain, then plunge it into the ice bath to stop the cooking. When cooled, drain it again and pat dry.

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the broccoli rape, garlic cloves, capers, anchovy fillets and 1 cup of chicken stock. Pulse for 30 seconds.

Slowly drizzle in olive oil and pulse until emulsified like a pesto. Do not overprocess. You can reheat the pesto gently over medium-high heat for about 2 minutes.

Note: You can fake it by reducing 1 1/2 cups of stock with a little tomato paste, red wine, black peppercorns, oregano and a bay leaf. If you do, discard bay leaf before serving.

- "The Babbo Cookbook" (Clarkson Potter/Publishers, 2002, $40)

Basic Herb Pan Sauce

Makes 1/2 cup

1/3 cup chicken stock, apple cider or wine

1/4 cup minced shallots

1 bay leaf

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard (optional)

1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice, wine or cognac (or to taste)

salt and ground black pepper to taste

1/4 cup heavy cream (optional)

1 tablespoon minced fresh herbs (parsley, thyme and

or rosemary) (optional)

1 tablespoon butter, preferably unsalted

After cooking lamb chops, pork chops or chicken breast, remove them to a platter and keep warm. Pour off the fat and heat the skillet to medium-high. Add the chicken broth or wine.

Stir with a wooden spoon to loosen and dissolve any brown bits. Bring to a boil and add the shallots, bay leaf, Dijon mustard, if using, lemon juice, wine or cognac, and salt and ground black pepper to taste.

Cook, stirring occasionally over medium-high heat until slightly thickened, 1 to 2 minutes. Add heavy cream, if using, and cook until it is reduced by half, 3 to 5 minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat, strain the sauce through a sieve, if you want, and, if desired, stir in 1 tablespoon minced fresh herbs. Discard bay leaf. Swirl in butter and spoon over the meat.

-- "The All New All Purpose Joy of Cooking" (Scribner, 1997, $30)