DAIRY SAUCES

SAUCES BASED ON BUTTER, CREAM, AND CHEESE deliver tremendous flavor, usually with a minimum of work. It's hard to imagine a simpler sauce than butter cooked until golden brown and infused with fresh sage leaves.

There are a few rules to remember. Use unsalted butter. Many manufacturers add salt to butter to prolong its freshness. Lost in the process is the sweet, creamy dairy flavor of farm-fresh butter. Sweet (or unsalted) butter tastes better.

When buying heavy cream, try to select a brand that has not been ultrapasteurized. This process exposes the cream to very high temperatures in order to prolong shelf-life. In the process, the cream loses some freshness and takes on a cooked flavor. Regular pasteurized cream, which may be available in supermarkets and is almost always sold in natural foods stores, has a sweeter, fresher flavor.

Finally, high-quality cheeses will always make a difference in pasta sauces, even when it's just a little grated Parmesan sprinkled on at the table. When shopping for ricotta, this means avoiding supermarket varieties, which tend to be watery and bland, and going to an Italian market, a cheese shop, or gourmet store and getting fresh homestyle ricotta that is firmer, creamier, and drier (it should have a texture like goat cheese) and much more flavorful.

Some tips for buying and grating Parmesan cheese: The real thing, Parmigiano-Reggiano, will deliver the best results. Look for these words stenciled on the rind. In our tests, we found that cheese grated directly over pasta has the fullest flavor. However, you can grate cheese before dinner and place some in a bowl on the table. If you have extra, it can be stored in the refrigerator. In our tests, grated cheese lost some flavor after a week, but the quality did not become significantly worse than freshly grated cheese until a month in the refrigerator. At this point, the grated cheese was quite dry and a bit bitter. Our advice: Grate cheese as needed but feel free to refrigerate extra in an airtight container and use it within a week or so.