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The sauteuse is a utensil of truncated-conical form with a connecting radius at the base and a long handle.
This utensil’s current shape and function date back to eighteenth-century French cuisine.
Originally made of heavy-gauge copper with a tin lining and hammered iron handle, the sauteuse is an interesting example of the analytical approach adopted by French chefs in improving their professional tools, right down to the last detail.
The flared or sloped shape of the body and the curvature where it joins the base are, in fact, designed to facilitate the movement made by the spatula or whisk in mixing the ingredients.
The metal of which the body of the sauteuse is made, heavy-gauge copper, with its excellent heat conduction properties, enables the exact amount of heat to be obtained, maintaining an even temperature all over the surface, which can be varied quickly according to the different stages of cooking.
The long handle makes it possible to hold the casserole steady on the hot plate when necessary.
A utensil with very specific features, the sauteuse is the most suitable for all those culinary operations, usually performed over heat, requiring frequent stirring of foods of unstable or delicate consistency such as butter, cream, eggs (zabaione and all butter sauces: Hollandaise, Bèarnaise, Mousseline ...) and sweet and savoury creams.
Its shape, with sloping sides, also makes it the ideal pan for purées and some types of sautéing or tossing.
In designing this sauteuse, Alain Chapel determined the size, the proportions of the body and the slant of the sides which he believed were exactly right.
The Sauteuse comes in two versions :
- The now classic model in bilaminate (thick copper coating and 18/10 stainless steel lining) which could be said to be more professional, bringing to modern cookery all the advantages of copper which, together with silver, is the best metal in terms of conduction and uniform heat distribution, and combining them with the excellent hygienic properties of the stainless steel used for the lining.
- The new trilaminate version (coating in AISI 430 steel + thick layer of aluminium + 18/10 stainless steel lining) virtually matches the unbeatable heat conduction of the copper and stainless steel model while having the added advantages of functioning also on electric hot plates, of being easier to clean and reasonably priced.
From 2003 on, both versions will have a stainless steel handle instead of a cast-iron one.
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