You can transform a runny sauce into a lush sauce by incorporating a liaison. In culinary terms, a liaison can be cold butter and flour ("beurre manie"), roux, or a slurry of cornstarch or arrowroot that is added to a sauce as a thickening agent.
Another frequently used liaison is a blended mixture of one-part egg yolk to three-parts heavy cream. When the liaison is slowly added to the hot sauce, the eggs coagulate and thicken the sauce, and together with the cream, add a rich velvety texture.
The word "liaison" first appeared in English in the 1640s and means "union" or "binding together," which describes what it does for the broth-based sauces of white stews ("blanquettes"), like classic veal blanquette and chicken blanquette.
Two rich sauces - Allemande and Normandy - are made by adding a liaison to a velouté, one of the five mother sauces of French cuisine.
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