CHAPTER TWO
SAUCES
SAUCES ARE the splendor and glory of French cooking, yet there is nothing secret or mysterious about making them. While their roster is stupendous to look at, it is not mind-boggling when you begin to realize that their multitude divides itself into a half-dozen very definite groups, and that each sauce in a particular group is made in the same general way. For instance, every sauce in the white sauce group of béchamels and veloutés calls for an identical technique, but any change in ingredients or trimmings gives the sauce a new name: béchamel with grated cheese is a mornay, with minced herbs, a chivry; while a white-wine fish velouté with dollops of cream, egg yolk, and butter becomes an elegant sauce parisienne. The same is true of the egg yolk and butter group. When flavored with tarragon, pepper, and vinegar it’s a béarnaise, but lemon makes it a hollandaise—yet hollandaise with a folding-in of whipped cream becomes a mousseline. Thus as soon as you have put into practice the basic formulas for the few mother sauces, you are equipped to command the whole towering edifice. Here are the mother groups in the sauce family:
THE WHITE SAUCES These stem from those two cousins, béchamel and velouté. Both use a flour and butter roux as a thickening agent but béchamel is a milk-based sauce while the velouté has a fish, meat, or poultry base. These are fundamental to the great tradition of French cooking, as well as being indispensable to the home cook. Their most useful function, these easy white sauces, is to make an appetizing and interesting dish out of such simple ingredients as hard-boiled eggs and diced mushrooms—gratiner them with a sauce mornay. Or flake left-over poached fish, mix it with cooked onions, and fold it with a cream sauce before browning it with buttered bread crumbs in the oven. A boiled hen becomes a poule à l’ivoire when napped with a creamy chicken velouté and accompanied with little braised onions and steamed rice. It would be hard for the everyday cook to get along without these good simple sauces.
THE BROWN SAUCES Long simmered daubes and pot roasts, stews and ragouts, these need brown sauces, as do sautés, brown fricassees, and roasts. More complicated to make than the white sauces, they have gone through some changes since the grande cuisine of Escoffier, as you will see in their discussion.
TOMATO SAUCE, EGG YOLK AND BUTTER SAUCES (Hollandaise family), and THE OIL AND VINEGAR (French dressing) GROUP These need no introduction.
FLAVORED BUTTERS Butters creamed with various herbs, seasonings, or purées are included in the sauce roster. But the most important here is the hot butter sauce beurre blanc, a signature of the nouvelle cuisine which emerged in the early 1970s. Originally it was a specialty sauce reserved usually for boiled fish and vegetables, but, easy to make (once you know how!), it has become the ubiquitous restaurant sauce for all manner of fish, meat, and fowl.
Rich sauces, especially the butter sauces and white sauces with cream and butter, should be used sparingly, never more than one to a meal. A sauce should not be considered a disguise or a mask; its role is to point up, to prolong, or to complement the taste of the food it accompanies, or to contrast with it, or to give variety to its mode of presentation.
White sauces are rapidly made with a white roux (butter and flour cooked together) plus milk, or white stock. They go with eggs, fish, chicken, veal, and vegetables. They are also the base for cream soups, soufflés, and many of the hot hors d’oeuvres.
Sauce béchamel in the time of Louis XIV was a more elaborate sauce than it is today. Then it was a simmering of milk, veal, and seasonings with an enrichment of cream. In modern French cooking, a béchamel is a quickly made milk-based foundation requiring only the addition of butter, cream, herbs, or other flavorings to turn it into a proper sauce.
Sauce velouté is made in exactly the same way, but its roux is moistened with chicken, veal, or fish stock, often with a wine flavoring. Milk or cream are included if you wish.
The roux
In French cooking, the flour and butter, which act as a thickening agent for the sauce, are always cooked slowly together for several minutes before any liquid is added. This is called a roux. The cooking eliminates that raw, pasty taste uncooked flour will give to a sauce, and also prepares the flour particles to absorb the liquid. The thickness of a sauce is in direct relation to the proportion of flour you use per cup of liquid. The following table is based on American all-purpose hard-wheat flour. All flour measurements are for level tablespoons or fractions.
| THIN SAUCE OR SOUP | 1 Tb flour per cup of liquid |
| MEDIUM, GENERAL-PURPOSE SAUCE | 1½ Tb flour per cup of liquid |
| THICK SAUCE | 2 Tb flour per cup of liquid |
| SOUFFLÉ BASE | 3 Tb flour per cup of liquid |
Cooking time
Many of the old cookbooks recommend that a white sauce, especially a velouté, be simmered for several hours, the object being to rid the sauce of its floury taste, and to concentrate flavor. However, if the flour and butter roux is properly cooked to begin with, and a concentrated, well-flavored stock is used, both of these problems have been solved at the start. After a long simmering, a perfectly executed velouté will acquire a certain added finesse; and if you have the time to simmer, by all means do so. But for the practical purposes of this book, we shall seldom consider it necessary.
Saucepan note
White sauces should always be made in a heavy-bottomed enameled, stainless steel, pyrex, porcelain, or tin-lined copper saucepan. If a thin-bottomed pan is used, it is a poor heat conductor and the sauce may scorch in the bottom of the pan. Aluminum tends to discolor a white sauce, particularly one containing wine or egg yolks.
A NOTE ON STOCKS FOR VELOUTÉ SAUCES
The recipe for homemade white stock is here; for white chicken stock is here; for fish stock is here; and for clam-juice fish stock is here. Canned chicken broth may be substituted for homemade white stock if you give it the following preliminary treatment:
Canned chicken broth
2 cups canned chicken broth or strained clear chicken and vegetable soup
3 Tb each: sliced onions, carrots, and celery
½ cup dry white wine or ⅓ cup dry white vermouth
2 parsley sprigs, ⅓ bay leaf, and a pinch of thyme
Simmer the chicken broth or soup with the vegetables, wine, and herbs for 30 minutes. Season to taste, strain, and it is ready to use.
SAUCE BÉCHAMEL[White Sauce]
This basic sauce takes about 5 minutes to make, and is then ready for the addition of flavors or enrichments. Suggestions for these are at the end of the master recipe.
For 2 cups (medium thickness)
A heavy-bottomed, 6-cup enameled, stainless steel, lined copper, porcelain, or pyrex saucepan
2 Tb butter
3 Tb flour
A wooden spatula or spoon
In the saucepan melt the butter over low heat. Blend in the flour, and cook slowly, stirring, until the butter and flour froth together for 2 minutes without coloring. This is now a white roux.
2 cups of milk and ¼ tsp salt heated to the boil in a small saucepan
OR 2 cups boiling white stock (see notes in preceding paragraph)
A wire whip
Remove roux from heat. As soon as roux has stopped bubbling, pour in all the hot liquid at once. Immediately beat vigorously with a wire whip to blend liquid and roux, gathering in all bits of roux from the inside edges of the pan.
Set saucepan over moderately high heat and stir with the wire whip until the sauce comes to the boil. Boil for 1 minute, stirring.
Remove from heat, and beat in salt and pepper to taste. Sauce is now ready for final flavorings or additions.
(*) If not used immediately, clean sauce off inside edges of pan with a rubber scraper. To prevent a skin from forming on its surface, float a thin film of milk, stock, or melted butter on top. Set aside uncovered, keep it hot over simmering water, refrigerate, or freeze it.
If you follow the preceding directions, you will always obtain a smooth sauce of the correct consistency. But here are some remedial measures in case you need them:
If sauce is lumpy
If your roux is hot, and your liquid near the boil, you should never have a lumpy sauce. But if there are lumps, force the sauce through a very fine sieve or whirl it in an electric blender. Then simmer it for 5 minutes.
If sauce is too thick
Bring the sauce to the simmer. Thin it out with milk, cream, or stock, beaten in a tablespoon at a time.
If sauce is too thin
Either boil it down over moderately high heat, stirring continually with a wooden spoon, until it has reduced to the correct consistency;
Or blend half a tablespoon of butter into a paste with half a tablespoon of flour (beurre manié). Off heat, beat the paste into the sauce with a wire whip. Boil for 1 minute, stirring.
The three following enrichments complete the whole master system of white-sauce making. While a plain, well-seasoned béchamel or velouté may be served just as it is, the addition of butter, cream, or egg yolks transforms it into something infinitely more delicious.
Fresh butter stirred into a sauce just before serving is the simplest of the enrichments. It smooths out the sauce, gives it a slight liaison, and imparts that certain French taste which seems to be present in no other type of cooking. For a cup of simple sauce, ½ to 1 tablespoon of butter is sufficient; as much as ½ cup may be beaten into a fine fish sauce. But if more than a tablespoon of butter is beaten into a cup of sauce, the sauce should then be served immediately. If it is reheated, or is kept hot, or if it is used for a gratinéed dish, the butter either liquefies and the sauce thins out just as though it had been diluted with milk, or the butter releases itself from suspension and floats on top of the sauce. However, if you slip up and heat a heavily buttered sauce, it will quickly reconstitute itself if you treat it like turned hollandaise.
To enrich 2 cups of béchamel or velouté
2 to 8 Tb butter (1 to 2 Tb is the usual amount)
A wire whip
Just before serving the sauce, and after all the final flavorings have been added, remove it from heat. Stir in the butter, a half-tablespoon at a time, beating until each piece of butter has been absorbed into the sauce before adding the next. Spoon the sauce over the hot food, or pour the sauce into a warmed bowl, and serve immediately.
With the addition of cream, a béchamel becomes a sauce crème; and a velouté, a sauce suprême. As the cream thins out the sauce, the basic béchamel or velouté must be thick enough initially so the finished sauce will be of the correct consistency.
Cream sauces are used for vegetables, eggs, fish, poultry, hot hors d’oeuvres, and for dishes which are to be gratinéed.
For 2 cups
1½ cups of thick béchamel or velouté (3 Tb flour, 2½ Tb butter, and 1½ cups liquid)
½ cup whipping cream
Salt and white pepper
Lemon juice
Bring the sauce to the simmer. Beat in the cream by spoonfuls, simmering, until the sauce is the consistency you wish it to be. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and drops of lemon juice.
Optional: 1 to 2 Tb softened butter (no butter if sauce is to be used for a gratinéed dish)
Off heat, and just before serving, beat in the optional butter by half-tablespoons.
Sauces enriched with egg yolks and cream are among the richest and most velvety in all the French repertoire. Sauce parisienne, or sauce allemande, is the generic term, but it invariably goes by another name according to its special flavorings or to the dish it accompanies. The simplest, sauce poulette, has a base of velouté flavored with meat or fish, onions and mushrooms. The famous sauce normande is a velouté based on white-wine fish stock and the cooking liquors of mussels, oysters, shrimps, écrevisses, and mushrooms. The shellfish sauces such as cardinal, Nantua, and Joinville are shellfish veloutés with special trimmings and a shellfish butter enrichment beaten in at the end. As all of these sauces are a basic velouté with a final enrichment of egg yolks, cream, and usually butter, if you can make one, you can make all.
Success in making the egg yolk liaison is but a realization that egg yolks will curdle and turn granular unless they are beaten with a bit of cold liquid first, before a hot liquid is gradually incorporated into them so that they are slowly heated. Once this preliminary step has been completed, the sauce may be brought to the boil; and because the egg yolks are supported by a flour-based sauce they may boil without danger of curdling.
The sauce parisienne described in the following recipe is used with eggs, fish, poultry, hot hors d’oeuvres, and dishes which are to be gratinéed. A heavily buttered sauce parisienne is used principally for fish poached in white wine, as described beginning on this page in the Fish chapter.
For about 2 cups
1½ cups thick béchamel or velouté (3 Tb flour, 2½ Tb butter, and 1½ cups liquid)
A heavy-bottomed, 8-cup enameled saucepan
Bring the sauce to the simmer in its saucepan.
2 egg yolks
½ cup whipping cream
An 8-cup mixing bowl
A wire whip
Blend the egg yolks and cream in the mixing bowl with a wire whip. A few drops at a time, beat in ½ cup of hot sauce. Slowly beat in the rest of the sauce in a thin stream. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan.
Set over moderately high heat and stir constantly with a wooden spoon, reaching all over the bottom of the pan until the sauce comes to the boil. Boil and stir for 1 minute.
Salt and white pepper
Lemon juice
More cream if necessary
Strain the sauce through a fine sieve to remove coagulated bits of egg white which always cling to the yolk. Rinse out the saucepan and return the sauce to it. Simmer over low heat to check seasoning, adding salt, pepper, and drops of lemon juice to taste. If sauce is too thick, beat in more cream by spoonfuls.
(*) If not used immediately, clean off sides of pan, and float a film of cream or stock over the surface. Sauce will thicken and look custardy as it cools, which is normal. It will smooth out when it is reheated. (Sauce may be frozen.)
Optional: 1 to 2 Tb softened butter (occasionally more is called for; use no butter if sauce is for a gratinéed dish)
Off heat, and just before serving, stir in the optional butter by bits.
Here are some of the principal sauces derived from sauce béchamel and sauce velouté, the recipes for which are here.
For: eggs, fish, poultry, veal, vegetables, pastas, and hot hors d’oeuvres
Note: If the sauce covers foods which are to be baked or gratinéed, use the minumum amount of cheese suggested, and omit the butter enrichment at the end of the recipe. Too much cheese can make the sauce stringy, and a butter enrichment will exude from the top of the sauce.
2 cups of medium béchamel or velouté
¼ to ½ cup of coarsely grated Swiss cheese, or a combination of coarsely grated Swiss and finely grated Parmesan
Bring the sauce to the boil. Remove from heat, and beat in the cheese until it has melted and blended with the sauce.
Season to taste with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and optional cayenne. Off heat and just before serving, stir in the optional butter a bit at a time.
For: eggs, fish, chicken, vegetables
2 cups béchamel or velouté, or the cream sauce
2 to 6 Tb cooked, fresh tomato purée, or tomato paste
Bring the sauce to the simmer. Stir in the tomato, a spoonful at a time, until you have achieved the color and flavor you wish. Correct seasoning.
1 to 2 Tb softened butter
Optional: 1 to 2 Tb minced fresh parsley, chervil, basil, or tarragon
Off heat and just before serving, stir in the butter, and the optional herbs.
For: eggs, fish, vegetables, or poached chicken
A small enameled saucepan
1 cup dry white wine or ⅔ cup dry white vermouth
4 Tb minced fresh chervil, tarragon, and parsley, or tarragon only; OR 2 Tb dried herbs
2 Tb minced shallots or green onions
Place all ingredients in the saucepan and boil slowly for 10 minutes, allowing the wine to reduce to about 3 tablespoons. This is now an herb essence.
2 cups béchamel or velouté, or the cream sauce
Strain the essence into the sauce, pressing the juice out of the herbs. Simmer for 2 to 3 minutes.
3 to 4 Tb minced fresh green herbs, or parsley, or tarragon 1 to 2 Tb softened butter
Off heat, and just before serving, stir in the fresh herbs and the enrichment butter.
For: fish, veal, lamb, chicken, turkey, eggs, and vegetables
Here the béchamel or velouté sauce is made simultaneously with the curry flavorings.
For 2½ cups
½ cup finely minced white or yellow onions
4 Tb butter
An 8-cup enameled saucepan
Cook the onions and butter over low heat for 10 minutes without allowing the onions to color.
2 to 3 Tb curry powder
Stir in the curry powder and cook slowly for 2 minutes.
4 Tb flour
Add the flour and stir over low heat for 3 minutes more.
2 cups boiling milk, white stock, or fish stock
Off heat, blend in the boiling liquid. Return sauce to heat and simmer slowly for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4 to 6 Tb whipping cream Salt and pepper Lemon juice
Then stir in the cream by tablespoons, until sauce has thinned to consistency you wish. Check seasoning, and add lemon juice to taste.
Off heat, and just before serving, stir in the butter by bits, then the optional parsley.
[Onion Sauce]
For: eggs, veal, chicken, turkey, lamb, vegetables, and foods which are to be gratinéed
Another version of this excellent sauce is in the Veal section.
For about 2½ cups
1 lb. or 4 cups of sliced yellow onions
¼ tsp salt
6 Tb butter
A 2½-quart, heavy-bottomed, enameled saucepan
Cook the onions slowly with salt and butter in a covered saucepan for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the onions are very tender but not browned.
4 Tb flour
Add the flour and stir over low heat for 3 minutes.
2 cups boiling milk, white stock, or fish stock
Off heat, blend in the boiling liquid. Then simmer the sauce slowly for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Force the sauce through a sieve or food mill, or purée it in the electric blender.
6 to 8 Tb whipping cream Salt and pepper Pinch of nutmeg
Bring again to the simmer, and thin out to desired consistency with spoonfuls of cream. Add salt, pepper, and nutmeg to taste.
1 to 2 Tb softened butter (no butter if sauce is to be used for a gratinéed dish)
Off heat and just before serving, stir in the enrichment butter.
SAUCE BÂTARDEFor: boiled fish, boiled chicken, boiled lamb, boiled potatoes, asparagus, cauliflower, celery, broccoli
This quickly made and useful sauce does not belong to the béchamel and velouté family because it is made with an uncooked roux, or beurre manié. A golden color is given it by the addition of an egg yolk, and when flavored with enough butter it suggests a hollandaise.
For 2 cups (medium thickness)
2 Tb melted or softened butter
3 Tb flour
An 8-cup, heavy-bottomed, enameled saucepan
A rubber scraper
Place the butter and flour in the saucepan and blend them into a smooth paste with a rubber scraper.
2 cups boiling white stock, or vegetable cooking water, or water and ¼ tsp salt
A wire whip
Pour on all the boiling liquid at once and blend vigorously with a wire whip.
1 egg yolk
2 Tb whipping cream
An 8-cup mixing bowl
Salt and white pepper
1 to 2 Tb lemon juice
Blend the egg yolk and cream with a wire whip, then, a few drops at a time, beat in ½ cup of sauce. Beat in the rest in a thin stream. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan. Bring to the boil over moderately high heat, beating, and boil 5 seconds. Remove from heat and season to taste with salt, pepper, and lemon juice. (*) If not used immediately, film surface with a half-tablespoon of melted butter.
4 to 8 Tb softened butter
Off heat, and just before serving, beat in the butter, a tablespoon at a time.
For: boiled fish or boiled leg of lamb
2 cups sauce bâtarde
2 to 3 Tb capers
Just before stirring in the enrichment butter, beat in the capers. Then, off heat, beat in the enrichment butter.
For: broiled mackerel, herring, tuna, or swordfish
2 cups sauce bâtarde omitting final butter enrichment
2 Tb strong Dijon-type prepared mustard
4 to 8 Tb softened butter
Blend the mustard and butter together with a rubber scraper. Off heat, and just before serving, beat the mustard/butter by tablespoons into the hot sauce.
For: boiled fish or boiled potatoes
2 Tb canned anchovies mashed into a purée or 1 Tb anchovy paste
2 cups sauce bâtarde
Just before buttering the sauce, beat in the anchovy mixture to taste. Then off heat, and before serving, beat in the enrichment butter.
The classical French brown sauce starts out with a long-simmered brown meat stock that goes into the making of an equally long-simmered, lightly thickened sauce base called an espagnole. The espagnole is simmered and skimmed for several hours more with additional stock and flavorings until it finally develops into the traditional mother of the brown sauces, demi-glace. This may take several days to accomplish, and the result is splendid. But as we are concerned with less formal cooking, we shall discuss it no further.
A good brown sauce may have as its thickening agent a brown roux of flour and butter, or cornstarch, potato starch, rice starch, or arrowroot. A flour-thickened brown sauce must be simmered and skimmed for two hours at least if it is to develop its full flavor. Starch and arrowroot thickenings take but a few minutes; and when properly made they are very good indeed. Because they are far more useful in home cooking than the long simmered and more conventional sauce, we have used them in most of the main-course recipes throughout this book.
Following are three interchangeable methods for making a basic brown sauce. Any of them may rapidly be converted into one of the composed sauces.
A NOTE ON MEAT STOCKS FOR BROWN SAUCES
Recipes for making brown stocks are here. Canned beef bouillon may be substituted, as is, for stocks in the first two recipes for brown sauce. If it is to be used in the last recipe, for starch-thickened sauce, its canned flavor should first be disguised and enriched as follows (canned consommé tends to be sweet and is not recommended):
2 cups canned beef bouillon
3 Tb each: finely minced onions and carrots
1 Tb finely minced celery
½ cup red wine, dry white wine, or dry white vermouth
2 parsley sprigs
⅓ bay leaf
⅛ tsp thyme
Optional: 1 Tb tomato paste
Simmer the canned bouillon with the rest of the ingredients listed for 20 to 30 minutes. Strain through a fine sieve, and the bouillon is ready to be turned into a sauce.
[Flour-based Brown Sauce]
This is the best of the group and the one most nearly approaching the traditional demi-glace. Its preliminaires are somewhat exacting, and it requires at least two hours of simmering; the longer it cooks the better it will be. It may be refrigerated for several days and freezes perfectly for several weeks.
Brown roux, which is the thickening for this type of sauce, is flour and fat cooked together until the flour has turned an even, nut-brown color. For an ordinary sauce, the flour is cooked in rendered fresh pork fat, or in cooking oil. But if the sauce is to accompany a delicate dish, such as foie gras, eggs, or vol-au-vent, the flour should be cooked in clarified butter—meaning the butter is melted and decanted, leaving its milky particles behind, as these burn and taste bitter.
It is important that the roux be cooked slowly and evenly. If the flour is burned, it will not thicken the sauce as it should, and it will also impart an unpleasant taste.
For about 1 quart of brown sauce
A heavy-bottomed, 2-quart saucepan
⅓ cup each: finely diced carrots, onions, and celery
3 Tb diced boiled ham (or diced lean bacon simmered for 10 minutes in water, rinsed, and drained)
6 Tb clarified butter, rendered fresh pork fat, or cooking oil
Cook the vegetables and ham or bacon slowly in the butter, fat, or oil for 10 minutes.
4 Tb flour
A wooden spatula or spoon
Blend the flour into the vegetables and stir continually over moderately low heat for 8 to 10 minutes, until the flour slowly turns a golden, nut brown.
A wire whip
6 cups boiling brown stock or canned beef bouillon
2 Tb tomato paste
A medium herb bouquet: 3 parsley sprigs, ½ bay leaf, and ¼ tsp thyme tied in cheesecloth
Remove from heat. With a wire whip, immediately blend in all the boiling liquid at once. Beat in the tomato paste. Add the herb bouquet.
Simmer slowly, partially covered, for 2 hours or more, skimming off fat and scum as necessary. Add more liquid if sauce thickens too much. You should end up with about 4 cups of sauce, thick enough to coat a spoon lightly.
Salt and pepper
Correct seasoning. Strain, pressing juice out of vegetables. Degrease thoroughly, and the sauce is ready to use.
(*) If not used immediately, clean off sides of pan, and float a film of stock over the top of the sauce to prevent a skin from forming. When cold, cover and refrigerate or freeze.
SAUCE RAGOÛT[Flour-based Brown Sauce with Giblets]
Sauce ragoût is essentially like the preceding brown sauce, but has more character, as it includes bones, trimmings, or giblets gathered from the game, beef, lamb, veal, goose, duck, or turkey the sauce is to be served with.
For 4 cups
A heavy-bottomed, 3- to 4-quart saucepan
1 to 4 cups of giblets, bones, and meat trimmings, raw or cooked
½ cup chopped carrots
½ cup chopped onions
6 Tb clarified butter, rendered fresh pork fat, or cooking oil; more if needed
Brown the giblets, bones, meat trimmings and vegetables in hot clarified butter, fat, or oil. Remove them to a side dish.
4 Tb flour
Slowly brown the flour in the fat remaining in the saucepan, adding more fat if necessary.
5 to 6 cups boiling brown stock or canned beef bouillon
Optional: 1 cup dry white wine, red wine, or ⅔ cup dry white vermouth
Optional: 3 Tb tomato paste
A medium herb bouquet: 3 parsley sprigs, ½ bay leaf, ¼ tsp thyme tied in cheesecloth
Off heat, beat in the boiling liquid, optional wine, and optional tomato paste. Add the herb bouquet and return the browned ingredients. Simmer, skimming as necessary, for 2 to 4 hours. Strain, degrease, correct seasoning, and the sauce is ready to use.
This is the same as sauce ragoût. If the game has been marinated, a cup or two of the marinade is used instead of the optional wine. The final sauce is highly seasoned with pepper.
This is sauce poivrade with ½ cup red currant jelly and ½ cup whipping cream beaten into it just before serving.
JUS LIÉJus lié is a most useful alternative to the preceding long-simmered brown sauces, and takes about 5 minutes to prepare. But it has no culinary interest whatsoever if it is not made with an excellent base, as it is only stock thickened with cornstarch or arrowroot. The sauce is usually made with the liquids obtained from the simmering or stewing of meats, and therefore acquires a good, strong flavor. If it is made from canned bouillon, the bouillon should first be simmered with wine and seasonings as described under meat stocks. Cornstarch is the thickening for ordinary brown sauces of this type. Arrowroot is used when the sauce is to be very clear and limpid, such as that for the ham braised in Madeira or the duck with orange. (Potato starch and rice starch are French equivalents of cornstarch.)
For 2 cups
2 cups of excellent brown stock, or canned beef bouillon simmered with wine and seasonings
A 4-cup saucepan
A wire whip
Blend the cornstarch or arrowroot with 2 tablespoons of cold stock, then beat in the rest of the stock. Simmer for 5 minutes, or until sauce has cleared and is lightly thickened. Correct seasoning.
Optional: ¼ cup Madeira, port, or cognac
Add optional wine or cognac, and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, tasting, until the alcohol has evaporated. (*) Sauce may be set aside, and reheated when needed.
Following are some of the principal composed sauces which are made with any of the three preceding brown sauces. They are almost always combined with the cooking juices of the dishes they accompany, and thereby pick up additional flavor.
[Peppery Brown Sauce]
For: broiled chicken, roast or braised pork, pork chops, hot meat leftovers
A 4-cup saucepan or your meat-cooking pan with its degreased juices
1 to 2 Tb minced shallots or green onions
1 Tb butter or cooking fat
1 cup dry white wine or ⅔ cup dry white vermouth
Cook the shallots or green onions slowly with the butter or cooking fat for 2 minutes without browning. Then add the wine and boil it down rapidly until it has reduced to 3 or 4 tablespoons.
Pour in the sauce and simmer for 2 minutes. Season with enough pepper to give it a spicy taste.
Off heat, and just before serving, swirl butter into the sauce a bit at a time. Stir in the parsley or herbs.
[Brown Sauce with Pickles and Capers]
For: roast or braised pork, pork chops, boiled or braised tongue, boiled beef, and hot meat leftovers
The preceding sauce diable plus:
2 Tb finely chopped pickles
2 Tb capers
Just before removing the sauce from heat, stir in the pickles and capers. Simmer a moment, then, off heat, beat in the butter and herbs.
For: roast or braised pork, pork chops, boiled beef, broiled chicken, or turkey, hot meat leftovers, hamburgers
A heavy-bottomed, 6-cup saucepan or your meat-cooking pan with its degreased juices
¼ cup finely minced yellow onions
1 Tb butter
1 tsp oil or cooking fat
Cook the onions slowly with the butter and oil or fat, for 10 to 15 minutes until they are tender and lightly browned.
1 cup dry white wine or ⅔ cup dry vermouth
Add the wine and boil it down rapidly until it has reduced to 3 or 4 tablespoons.
2 cups brown sauce
Add the brown sauce and simmer 10 minutes. Correct seasoning.
3 to 4 Tb Dijon-type prepared mustard creamed with 2 or 3 Tb softened butter and ⅛ tsp sugar
2 to 3 Tb fresh minced parsley
Off heat and just before serving, beat the mustard mixture into the sauce, tasting. Beat in the parsley, and serve.
For: sautéed chicken, veal, rabbit, braised vegetables, hot meat leftovers, and poached or baked eggs
A 2- to 3-cup enameled saucepan
1 cup dry white wine or ⅔ cup dry white vermouth
2 Tb minced shallots or green onions
4 Tb fresh herbs or 2 Tb dried herbs as follows: parsley, basil, chervil, rosemary, oregano, and tarragon only
Place all the ingredients in the saucepan and boil slowly for 10 minutes, reducing the wine to 2 or 3 tablespoons. This is now an herb essence.
Strain the herb essence into the brown sauce, pressing the juices out of the herbs. Simmer for 1 minute.
Off heat, and just before serving, beat the butter into the sauce by bits, then beat in the herbs.
For: lamb, chicken, beef, rice, and egg dishes
A heavy-bottomed, 8-cup saucepan
1½ cups finely minced yellow onions
2 Tb butter
1 tsp oil
Cook the onions slowly in the butter and oil for about 15 minutes, until they are tender and lightly browned.
Blend in the curry powder and cook slowly for 1 minute.
Optional: 2 cloves mashed garlic
Stir in the optional garlic and cook slowly for half a minute.
2 cups brown sauce
Add the brown sauce and simmer for 10 minutes.
2 to 3 tsp lemon juice
Correct seasoning and add lemon juice to taste.
1 to 3 Tb softened butter
2 to 3 Tb fresh minced parsley
Off heat, and just before serving, beat in the butter by bits. Stir in the parsley.
For: broiled or sautéed chicken, veal, rabbit, or for egg dishes, hot meat leftovers, or pastas
A heavy-bottomed, 8-cup saucepan
¼ lb. (1 cup) finely minced fresh mushrooms or mushroom stems only
2 Tb shallots or green onions
1 Tb butter
½ Tb oil
Sauté the mushrooms with the shallots or onions in hot butter and oil for 4 to 5 minutes.
½ cup dry white wine or ⅓ cup dry white vermouth
Add the wine and boil it down rapidly until it has reduced almost completely.
Stir in the brown sauce and tomato paste and simmer for 5 minutes. Correct seasoning.
1 to 3 Tb softened butter
3 to 4 Tb mixed green herbs or parsley
Off heat and just before serving, stir in the butter by bits, then the herbs or parsley.
[Brown Mushroom Sauce with Fresh Tomatoes, Garlic, and Herbs]
For: same as preceding sauce duxelles
Sauce chasseur is almost the same as sauce duxelles, but a bit more hearty in flavor. The recipe for it is described in the Veal section under escalopes de veau chasseur.
[Brown Port-wine Sauce]
For: filet of beef, or for ham, veal, chicken livers, and egg dishes, or to sauce a garniture for vol-au-vents
½ cup Madeira or port
A 6-cup saucepan
Boil the wine in the saucepan until it has reduced to about 3 tablespoons.
2 cups excellent brown sauce
Optional: 1 to 2 tsp meat glaze
3 to 4 Tb Madeira or port, if necessary
Add the brown sauce and simmer for a minute or two. Taste carefully for seasoning and strength, adding meat glaze if you have it and feel it necessary. If more wine is needed, add it by tablespoons, simmering briefly to evaporate the alcohol.
2 to 3 Tb softened butter
Off heat and just before serving, beat in the butter by bits.
For: filet of beef, fresh foie gras, ham, veal, egg dishes, and timbales
The preceding sauce Madère
2 to 4 diced canned truffles and their juice
Prepare the Madeira sauce as in the preceding recipe, but add the truffle juice to reduce with the Madeira at the beginning. After flavoring the sauce, stir in the truffles and simmer for a minute. Off heat, beat the butter into the sauce just before serving.
The following brown sauces are incorporated into recipes in other parts of the book.
This sauce is made by dissolving the coagulated cooking juices in a roasting or sautéing pan with wine or stock after the meat has been removed. The liquid is boiled down until it is syrupy. Off heat a lump of butter is swirled in to give the sauce a slight liaison. It is one of the most delicious, useful, and simple of all the brown sauces, and is described in countless recipes. A good illustration is the deglazing sauce for roast chicken.
Sauce à l’Italienne, a brown sauce with ham, mushrooms, and herbs, as described under braised sweetbreads. The sauce may also be used for brains, sautéed liver, egg dishes, and pastas.
Sauce Bordelaise, a red wine sauce with beef marrow, described in the Kidney section under rognons de veau à la bordelaise. The sauce is also good with steaks, hamburgers, and egg dishes.
Sauce à l’Orange, a brown sauce with orange flavoring and orange peel, as described in the Duck section for canard à l’orange. The same sauce could also be used with baked ham or roast pork.
Sauce Bourguignonne, a red wine sauce always accompanied by a garniture of bacon, mushrooms, and braised onions, as described under poached eggs à la bourguignonne. It also goes with sweetbreads or brains, sautéed beef, and chicken. Boeuf bourguignon and coq au vin are examples.
Sauces Tomate
[Tomato Sauce]
This good basic tomato sauce is served just as it is, or may be flavored with herbs or combined with other sauces whenever you wish a tomato flavoring. It is at its best with fresh tomatoes, but canned tomatoes or canned tomato purée will also produce a good sauce. You will notice, during its simmering, that it really should cook for about an hour and a half to develop its full flavor.
For about 2½ cups
A heavy-bottomed, 2½-quart saucepan
¼ cup each: finely diced carrots, onions, and celery
2 Tb minced boiled ham; OR 2 Tb minced lean bacon, simmered for 10 minutes in water, rinsed, and drained
3 Tb butter
1 Tb oil
Cook the vegetables and the ham or bacon slowly in the butter and oil for 10 minutes without letting them brown.
1½ Tb flour
Blend the flour into the ham and vegetables, and cook slowly for 3 minutes, stirring.
1½ cups boiling stock or canned beef bouillon
Off heat, beat in the stock or bouillon.
2 lbs. (4 cups) chopped, ripe, red tomatoes which need not be peeled; OR 3 cups canned tomatoes; OR 1½ cups canned tomato purée and 1½ cups water
¼ tsp salt
⅛ tsp sugar
2 unpeeled cloves garlic
4 parsley sprigs
½ bay leaf
¼ tsp thyme
Stir in the tomatoes, salt, and sugar. Add the garlic and herbs. Simmer for 1½ to 2 hours, skimming occasionally, and adding water if sauce reduces and thickens too much. You should end up with about 2½ cups of rich, fairly thick sauce.
1 to 2 Tb tomato paste, if necessary
Strain, pressing juice out of ingredients. Correct seasoning. Stir in 1 to 2 tablespoons of tomato paste if you feel the sauce lacks color, and simmer again for 5 minutes.
(*) If not used immediately, film surface with stock or a few drops of oil. May be refrigerated or frozen.
For: broiled or boiled chicken, boiled beef, meat patties, hot meat leftovers, eggs, pastas, and pizzas
Here is a thick, concentrated tomato sauce with real Mediterranean flavor.
For about 2 cups
A heavy-bottomed, 3-quart saucepan
⅓ cup finely minced yellow onions
2 Tb olive oil
Cook the onions and olive oil slowly together for about 10 minutes, until the onions are tender but not browned.
2 tsp flour
Stir in the flour and cook slowly for 3 minutes without browning.
3 lbs. ripe red tomatoes, peeled, seeded, juiced, and chopped (about 4½ cups)
⅛ tsp sugar
2 cloves mashed garlic
A medium herb bouquet: 4 parsley sprigs, ½ bay leaf, and ¼ tsp thyme tied in cheesecloth
⅛ tsp fennel
⅛ tsp basil
Small pinch of saffron
Small pinch of coriander
A 1-inch piece (¼ tsp) dried orange peel
½ tsp salt
1 to 2 Tb tomato paste, if necessary
Salt and pepper
Stir in the tomatoes, sugar, garlic, herbs, and seasonings. Cover pan and cook slowly for 10 minutes, so the tomatoes will render more of their juice. Then uncover and simmer for about half an hour, adding spoonfuls of tomato juice or water if the sauce becomes so thick it risks scorching. The purée is done when it tastes thoroughly cooked and is thick enough to form a mass in the spoon. Remove herb bouquet. If necessary, stir in 1 or 2 tablespoons of tomato paste for color, and simmer 2 minutes. Correct seasoning. Strain the sauce if you wish.
(*) May be refrigerated or frozen.
SAUCE HOLLANDAISE
[Hollandaise Sauce: Egg Yolk and Butter Sauce flavored with Lemon Juice]
Hollandaise sauce is made of warmed egg yolks flavored with lemon juice, into which butter is gradually incorporated to make a thick, yellow, creamy sauce. It is probably the most famous of all sauces, and is often the most dreaded, as the egg yolks can curdle and the sauce can turn. It is extremely easy and almost foolproof to make in the electric blender, and we give the recipe on this page. But we feel it is of great importance that you learn how to make hollandaise by hand, for part of every good cook’s general knowledge is a thorough familiarity with the vagaries of egg yolks under all conditions. The following recipe takes about 5 minutes, and is almost as fast as blender hollandaise. It is only one of numerous methods for hollandaise, all of which accomplish the same result, that of forcing egg yolks to absorb butter and hold it in creamy suspension.
TWO POINTS TO REMEMBER when making hollandaise by hand
The heating and thickening of the egg yolks
So that the egg yolks will thicken into a smooth cream, they must be heated slowly and gradually. Too sudden heat will make them granular. Overcooking scrambles them. You may beat them over hot water or over low heat; it makes no difference as long as the process is slow and gentle.
The butter
Egg yolks will readily absorb a certain quantity of butter when it is fed to them gradually, giving them time to incorporate each addition before another is presented. When too much is added at a time, particularly at first, the sauce will not thicken. And if the total amount of butter is more than the yolks can absorb, the sauce will curdle. About 3 ounces of butter is the usual maximum amount per yolk. But if you have never made hollandaise before, it is safer not to go over 2 ounces or ¼ cup.
For 1 to 1½ cups hollandaise—serving 4 to 6 people
6 to 8 ounces of butter (¾ to 1 cup or 1½ to 2 sticks)
A small saucepan
Cut the butter into pieces and melt it in the saucepan over moderate heat. Then set it aside.
Beat the egg yolks for about 1 minute in the saucepan, or until they become thick and sticky.
1 Tb cold water
1 Tb lemon juice
Big pinch of salt
Add the water, lemon juice, and salt, and beat for half a minute more.
1 Tb cold butter
A pan of cold water (to cool off the bottom of the saucepan if necessary)
Add the tablespoon of cold butter, but do not beat it in. Then place the saucepan over very low heat or barely simmering water and stir the egg yolks with a wire whip until they slowly thicken into a smooth cream. This will take 1 to 2 minutes. If they seem to be thickening too quickly, or even suggest a lumpy quality, immediately plunge the bottom of the pan in cold water, beating the yolks to cool them. Then continue beating over heat. The egg yolks have thickened enough when you can begin to see the bottom of the pan between strokes, and the mixture forms a light cream on the wires of the whip.
1 Tb cold butter
Immediately remove from heat and beat in the cold butter, which will cool the egg yolks and stop their cooking.
The melted butter
Then beating the egg yolks with a wire whip, pour on the melted butter by droplets or quarter-teaspoonfuls until the sauce begins to thicken into a very heavy cream. Then pour the butter a little more rapidly. Omit the milky residue at the bottom of the butter pan.
Salt and white pepper
Drops of lemon juice
Season the sauce to taste with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.
Keeping the sauce warm
Hollandaise is served warm, not hot. If it is kept too warm, it will thin out or curdle. It can be held perfectly for an hour or more near the very faint heat of a gas pilot light on the stove, or in a pan of lukewarm water. As hollandaise made with the maximum amount of butter is difficult to hold, use the minimum suggested in the recipe, then beat softened or tepid butter into the sauce just before serving.
A tablespoon or two of béchamel or velouté sauce, beaten into the hollandaise, or a teaspoon of cornstarch beaten into the egg yolks at the beginning, will help to hold a sauce that is to be kept warm for a long period of time.
If the sauce is too thick
Beat in 1 to 2 tablespoons of hot water, vegetable cooking liquid, stock, milk, or cream.
If the sauce refuses to thicken
If you have beaten in your butter too quickly, and the sauce refuses to thicken, it is easily remedied. Rinse out a mixing bowl with hot water. Put in a teaspoon of lemon juice and a tablespoon of the sauce. Beat with a wire whip for a moment until the sauce creams and thickens. Then beat in the rest of the sauce half a tablespoon at a time, beating until each addition has thickened in the sauce before adding the next. This always works.
If the sauce curdles or separates—“turned sauce”
If a finished sauce starts to separate, a tablespoon of cold water beaten into it will often bring it back. If not, use the preceding technique.
Leftover hollandaise
Leftover hollandaise may be refrigerated for a day or two, or may be frozen. It is fine as an enrichment for veloutés and béchamels; beat it into the hot white sauce off heat and a tablespoon at a time just before serving.
If the leftover sauce is to be used again as a hollandaise, beat 2 tablespoons of it in a saucepan over very low heat or hot water. Gradually beat in the rest of the sauce by spoonfuls.
Hollandaise Sauce Made in the Electric Blender
This very quick method for making hollandaise cannot fail when you add your butter in a small stream of droplets. If the sauce refuses to thicken, pour it out, then pour it back into the whizzing machine in a thin stream of droplets. As the butter cools, it begins to cream and forms itself into a thick sauce. If you are used to handmade hollandaise, you may find the blender variety lacks something in quality; this is perhaps due to complete homogenization. But as the technique is well within the capabilities of an 8-year-old child, it has much to recommend it.
For about ¾ cup
3 egg yolks
¼ tsp salt
Pinch of pepper
1 to 2 Tb lemon juice
Place egg yolks, seasonings, and 1 tablespoon lemon juice in the blender jar. You can beat in more when sauce is done and will know what proportions you like for the next time.
Cut the butter into pieces and heat it to foaming hot in a small saucepan.
A towel, if you do not have a splatterproof blender jar
Cover the jar and blend the egg yolk mixture at top speed for 2 seconds. Uncover, and still blending at top speed, immediately start pouring on the hot butter in a thin stream of droplets. (You may need to protect yourself with a towel during this operation.) By the time two thirds of the butter has gone in, the sauce will be a thick cream. Omit the milky residue at the bottom of the butter pan. Taste the sauce, and blend in more seasonings if necessary.
(*) If not used immediately, set the jar in tepid, but not warm, water.
For More Sauce
The amount of butter you can use in a blender is only half the amount the egg yolks could absorb if you were making the sauce by hand, when 3 egg yolks can take 8 to 9 ounces of butter rather than the 4 ounces in the preceding recipe. However, if you added more butter to the blender than the 4 ounces specified, the sauce would become so thick that it would clog the machine. To double your amount of sauce, then, pour it out of the blender jar into a saucepan or bowl and beat into it an additional ½ cup of melted butter, added in a stream of droplets.
Except for the mousseline sabayon mentioned at the end of this section, all the other members of the family are made in exactly the same way as hollandaise sauce. The basic flavorings may be vinegar and herbs instead of lemon juice, or concentrated white-wine fish stock, but the technique does not vary.
Stirred-in Trimmings
A plain hollandaise may have a number of trimmings such as the following stirred into it:
HERBS
For poached eggs or boiled fish, stir in a mixture of minced parsley, chives, and tarragon.
From 2 to 3 tablespoons of puréed artichoke hearts, asparagus tips, or cooked shellfish stirred into a hollandaise make it a good sauce for egg dishes. Or use finely minced sautéed mushrooms—see the recipe for mushroom duxelles.
[Hollandaise with Beaten Egg Whites]
For: fish, soufflés, asparagus, egg dishes
Stiffly beaten egg whites folded into hollandaise swell and lighten the sauce so that it may serve more people.
Just before serving, fold the egg whites into the hollandaise.
[Hollandaise with Whipped Cream]
For: fish, soufflés, asparagus
½ cup chilled whipping cream
Beat the chilled cream in a chilled bowl with a chilled beater as described on this page.
1½ cups sauce hollandaise
Fold it into the hollandaise just before serving.
For: asparagus or broccoli
This sauce is made like an ordinary hollandaise except for the orange flavoring. Proceed as follows:
1 Tb lemon juice
1 Tb orange juice
Pinch of salt
2 Tb cold butter
⅓ to ⅔ cup melted butter
Beat the egg yolks until thickened, then beat in the liquids and salt. Add 1 tablespoon of cold butter, and thicken the mixture over low heat. Beat in the other tablespoon of cold butter, then the melted butter.
2 to 4 Tb orange juice
The grated peel of an orange
Finish the sauce by beating in the orange juice by spoonfuls, then the orange peel.
HOLLANDAISE SAUCES FOR FISH
When a hollandaise type of sauce is to accompany filets of fish poached in white wine, or a fish soufflé, the fish-poaching liquid is boiled down to a concentrated essence, or fumet, and is used in place of lemon juice as a flavoring for the sauce.
[Hollandaise with White-wine Fish Fumet]
1 cup white-wine fish stock
Boil down the fish stock until it has reduced to 3 tablespoons. This is now a fumet de poisson. Allow it to cool.
Ingredients for the sauce hollandaise, omitting lemon juice and water
Proceed with the hollandaise as usual, substituting the fish fumet for the lemon juice and water.
[Hollandaise with Cream and White-wine Fish Fumet]
The recipe for this extremely good sauce, in which the egg yolks are thickened with cream and fish fumet, is under soufflé de poisson.
Sauce Béarnaise[Béarnaise Sauce]
For: steaks, boiled or fried fish, broiled chicken, egg dishes, timbales Béarnaise sauce differs from hollandaise only in taste and strength; instead of lemon juice, its basic flavoring is a reduction of wine, vinegar, shallots, pepper, and tarragon. The techniques for making the two sauces are similar.
For 1½ cups
¼ cup wine vinegar
¼ cup dry white wine or dry white vermouth
1 Tb minced shallots or green onions
1 Tb minced fresh tarragon or ½ Tb dried tarragon
⅛ tsp pepper
Pinch of salt
A small saucepan
Boil the vinegar, wine, shallots or onions, herbs, and seasonings over moderate heat until the liquid has reduced to 2 tablespoons. Let it cool.
3 egg yolks
2 Tb cold butter
½ to ⅔ cup melted butter
2 Tb fresh minced tarragon or parsley
Then proceed as though making a hollandaise. Beat the egg yolks until thick. Strain in the vinegar mixture and beat. Add 1 tablespoon of cold butter and thicken the egg yolks over low heat. Beat in the other tablespoon of cold butter, then the melted butter by droplets. Correct seasoning, and beat in the tarragon or parsley.
The two following sauces are also for steaks, fish, chicken, and eggs.
2 to 4 Tb tomato paste or purée
1½ cups sauce béarnaise
Beat the tomato by tablespoons into the sauce béarnaise and correct seasoning.
Stir the melted meat glaze into the sauce béarnaise.
Mayonnaise like hollandaise is a process of forcing egg yolks to absorb a fatty substance, oil in this case, and to hold it in thick and creamy suspension. But as the egg yolks do not have to be warmed, the sauce is that much simpler to make than hollandaise. You can make it by machine in a blender, although the processor produces a larger and better sauce. Either way it is almost automatic, and takes no skill whatsoever. Mayonnaise done by hand or with an electric beater requires familiarity with egg yolks. And again, as with hollandaise, you should be able to make it by hand as part of your general mastery of the egg yolk. It is certainly far from difficult once you understand the process, and after you have done it a few times, you should easily and confidently be able to whip together a quart of sauce in less than 10 minutes.
POINTS TO REMEMBER when making mayonnaise by hand
Temperature
Mayonnaise is easiest to make when all ingredients are at normal room temperature. Warm the mixing bowl in hot water to take the chill off the egg yolks. Heat the oil to tepid if it is cold.
Egg Yolks
Always beat the egg yolks for a minute or two before adding anything to them. As soon as they are thick and sticky, they are ready to absorb the oil.
Adding the Oil
The oil must be added very slowly at first, in droplets, until the emulsion process begins and the sauce thickens into a heavy cream. After this, the oil may be incorporated more rapidly.
Proportions
The maximum amount of oil one U.S. Large egg yolk will absorb is 6 ounces or ¾ cup. When this maximum is exceeded, the binding properties of the egg yolks break down, and the sauce thins out or curdles. If you have never made mayonnaise before, it is safest not to exceed ½ cup of oil per egg yolk. Here is a table giving proportions for varying amounts of sauce:
For 2 to 2¾ Cups of Hand-beaten Mayonnaise
NOTE: The following directions are for a hand-beaten sauce. Exactly the same system is followed for an electric beater. Use the large bowl, and the moderately fast speed for whipping cream. Continually push the sauce into the beater blades with a rubber scraper.
A round-bottomed, 2½- to 3-quart glazed pottery, glass, or stainless-steel mixing bowl. Set it in a heavy casserole or saucepan to keep it from slipping.
3 egg yolks
A large wire whip
Warm the bowl in hot water. Dry it. Add the egg yolks and beat for 1 to 2 minutes until they are thick and sticky.
1 Tb wine vinegar or lemon juice
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp dry or prepared mustard
Add the vinegar or lemon juice, salt, and mustard. Beat for 30 seconds more.
1½ to 2¼ cups of olive oil, salad oil, or a mixture of each. If the oil is cold, heat it to tepid; and if you are a novice, use the minimum amount.
The egg yolks are now ready to receive the oil, and while it goes in, drop by drop, you must not stop beating until the sauce has thickened. A speed of 2 strokes per second is fast enough. You can switch hands or switch directions, it makes no difference as long as you beat constantly. Add the drops of oil with a teaspoon, or rest the lip of the bottle on the edge of the bowl. Keep your eye on the oil rather than on the sauce. Stop pouring and continue beating every 10 seconds or so, to be sure the egg yolks are absorbing the oil. After ⅓ to ½ cup of oil has been incorporated, the sauce will thicken into a very heavy cream and the crisis is over. The beating arm may rest a moment.
Then beat in the remaining oil by 1 to 2 tablespoon dollops, blending it thoroughly after each addition.
Drops of wine vinegar or lemon juice as needed
When the sauce becomes too thick and stiff, beat in drops of vinegar or lemon juice to thin it out. Then continue with the oil.
2 Tb boiling water
Vinegar, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and mustard
Beat the boiling water into the sauce. This is an anti-curdling insurance. Season to taste.
If the sauce is not used immediately, scrape it into a small bowl and cover it closely so a skin will not form on its surface.
You will never have trouble with freshly made mayonnaise if you have beaten the egg yolks thoroughly in a warmed bowl before adding the oil, if the oil has been added in droplets until the sauce has commenced to thicken, and if you have not exceeded the maximum proportions of ¾ cup of oil per egg yolk. A mayonnaise has turned when it refuses to thicken, or, in a finished mayonnaise, when the oil releases itself from suspension and the sauce curdles. In either case, the remedy is simple.
Warm a mixing bowl in hot water. Dry it. Add 1 teaspoon of prepared mustard and 1 tablespoon of sauce. Beat with a wire whip for several seconds until they cream and thicken together. Beat in the rest of the sauce by teaspoons, thickening each addition before adding the next. This always works. Just be sure you add the turned sauce a little bit at a time, particularly at first.
REFRIGERATION
After several days under refrigeration, mayonnaise has a tendency to thin out, especially if it is stirred before it comes to room temperature. If it does turn, bring it back using the preceding system.
Mayonnaise Made in the Electric Blender or Food Processor
Mayonnaise in the blender takes a whole egg whirled with a pinch of mustard and salt for 30 seconds, then a tablespoon of lemon juice whirled another 10 seconds, and finally, with the machine at full speed, in goes a thin stream of oil, about a cupful. Add more, and the machine clogs. You scrape it out, your rubber spatula impaling itself on the sharp-pointed blade, and you get less than the 1¼ cups of mayonnaise you should have because part of it remains plastered in the machine. It’s mayonnaise, all right, but the processor makes more sauce of a better quality. Here’s how:
For about 2 cups of mayonnaise in the food processor (with steel blade)
1 egg and 2 yolks
Process the egg and the yolks for 1 minute.
¼ tsp dry mustard
½ tsp salt
Fresh lemon juice and/or wine vinegar
With the machine running, add the mustard, salt, and 1 teaspoon of lemon juice or vinegar.
2 cups best quality oil—olive oil and/or salad oil
More salt, pepper, and lemon juice or vinegar as needed
With the machine still running, start adding the oil in a stream of droplets, continuing until you have used half the oil and the sauce is very thick—do not stop processing until sauce has thickened. Thin out with lemon juice or vinegar, then continue with the oil. Season carefully with more salt, pepper, and lemon juice or vinegar.
[Mayonnaise with Green Herbs]
For: hors d’oeuvres, eggs, fish, meats
3 to 4 Tb of fresh, minced green herbs, such as tarragon, basil, chervil, chives, parsley, oregano
1½ cups mayonnaise
If the sauce is to be kept for several days, blanch the herbs for 1 minute in boiling water. Drain, run cold water over them, and pat dry with a towel. The herbs will look greener, and will not turn sour in the sauce. Stir them into the mayonnaise.
For: hors d’oeuvres, eggs, fish, meats
Ingredients for about 4 Tb of herb purée:
8 to 10 spinach leaves
2 Tb chopped shallots or green onions
¼ cup water-cress leaves
¼ cup parsley leaves
1 Tb fresh tarragon or ½ Tb dried tarragon
Optional: 2 Tb fresh chervil
Bring 1 cup of water to the boil in a small saucepan. Add the spinach and shallots or onions and boil 2 minutes. Then add the rest of the ingredients and boil 1 minute more. Strain, run cold water over the herbs, and pat dry with a towel.
Ingredients for 1½ cups of mayonnaise
If you are making the mayonnaise in an electric blender, add the herbs to the blender with the egg, then proceed as usual. For a handmade mayonnaise, either purée the herbs in a blender, or chop them into a purée and force them through a sieve, then stir the herbs into the finished sauce.
[Green Mayonnaise with Butter or Cream Cheese, Pickles, Capers, and Anchovies]
For: hors d’oeuvres, sandwich spreads, eggs, fish, and as a spread for cold sliced veal, beef, or pork
For about 2¼ cups
2 Tb each: sour pickles, capers, and canned anchovies or anchovy paste
½ cup softened butter or cream cheese
The preceding mayonnaise verte
Chop the pickles, capers, and anchovies into a very fine mince, then cream them with the butter or cheese. Beat the mixture, a tablespoon at a time, into the green mayonnaise.
[Hard Yolk Mayonnaise]
The yolks of hard-boiled eggs will also absorb oil and turn into a mayonnaise, but with its own characteristic taste and consistency. When sieved egg whites are beaten into it, the sauce acquires a nice lightness and body which makes it useful for spooning over cold foods. This sauce cannot be made in an electric blender; it becomes so stiff the machine clogs.
For 1½ to 2 cups
3 hard-boiled egg yolks
1 Tb prepared mustard
¼ tsp salt
Pound and mash the egg yolks in a mixing bowl with the mustard and salt until you have a very smooth paste. Unless the yolks are smooth and free from lumps, they will not absorb the oil.
1 cup oil
Wine vinegar or lemon juice as needed
Proceed as for regular mayonnaise, beating in the oil by droplets at first until the sauce has thickened, and thinning out with vinegar or lemon juice as necessary.
3 to 4 Tb minced sour pickles
3 to 4 Tb minced capers
2 to 4 Tb minced fresh green herbs such as parsley, chives, tarragon
Optional: 2 or 3 sieved hard-boiled egg whites
Twist the minced pickles and capers into a ball in the corner of a towel to extract their juice. Beat them gradually into the sauce. Then beat in the herbs, and finally the optional egg whites. Correct seasoning.
[Mayonnaise with Anchovies, Pickles, Capers, and Herbs]
With the addition of half a teaspoon or so of anchovy paste, sauce rémoulade has the same flavorings as sauce tartare, but it is a regular mayonnaise rather than one made with hard yolks.
When gelatin is dissolved and congealed in mayonnaise, the sauce will hold its shape and can be used for coating cold eggs, fish, and vegetables, or may be squeezed out of a pastry bag to make fancy decorations.
For about 1¾ cups
(This is the correct consistency for coating cold foods with a spoon. If the mayonnaise is to be forced through a pastry bag, it must be stiffer; you would use 2 tablespoons of gelatin dissolved in ½ cup of liquid then beaten into 2 cups of mayonnaise.)
2 Tb white wine or white vermouth
1 Tb wine vinegar
2½ Tb chicken-, beef-, or fish-stock
1 Tb (1 envelope) gelatin
Pour the liquid into a small saucepan. Sprinkle the gelatin on it and let it dissolve for several minutes. Then stir the mixture over low heat until the gelatin is completely free of granules. Let it cool to tepid.
1½ cups mayonnaise
Beat the gelatin mixture gradually into the mayonnaise. Correct seasoning. The sauce will thin out, then gradually thicken as the gelatin sets.
Use it just before it sets. If it becomes too stiff, stir it briefly over gentle heat.
For: boiled fish, especially cod, bourride (Provençal fish soup), snails, boiled potatoes, green beans, and hard-boiled eggs
This rich, thick mayonnaise with its fine garlic flavor must be made in a fairly traditional way if it is to have its correct taste and consistency. The garlic should be pounded in a mortar until it is mashed into a very smooth paste. You cannot make it successfully in an electric blender because for some unfortunate reason the garlic acquires a raw and bitter taste, and the egg white required for blender-made sauce does not produce the fine, heavy texture that is characteristic of a proper Mediterranean aïoli.
For about 2 cups
1 slice—⅜ inch thick—of stale, white homemade-type bread
3 Tb milk or wine vinegar
Remove crusts and break the bread into a small bowl. Stir in the milk or vinegar and let the bread soak for 5 to 10 minutes into a soft pulp. Twist the bread into a ball in the corner of a towel to extract the liquid.
A heavy bowl or mortar
A wooden pestle
4 to 8 cloves mashed garlic
Place the bread and garlic in the bowl and pound with the pestle for at least 5 minutes to mash the garlic and bread into a very, very smooth paste.
1 egg yolk
¼ tsp salt
Pound in the egg yolk and salt until the mixture is thick and sticky.
Then, drop by drop, pound and blend in the olive oil. When the sauce has thickened into a heavy cream, you may switch from a pestle to a wire whip and add the oil a little bit faster. Thin out the sauce as necessary with drops of water or stock, and lemon juice. Sauce should remain quite heavy, so it holds its shape in a spoon. Correct seasoning.
NOTE: If the sauce turns or curdles, you can reconstitute it by following the directions for turned mayonnaise.
Fish Soup Note
If the aïoli is to be stirred into a fish soup, more egg yolks are used, usually one per person.
[Herbal Mayonnaise Made with Soft-boiled Eggs]
For: hot boiled beef, chicken, or fish
For about 2 cups
2 eggs
Boil the eggs for 3 minutes (3½ if they are chilled). Place the yolks in a mixing bowl and put the whites—which should be just set—aside.
1 Tb prepared mustard
½ tsp salt
1 Tb wine vinegar or lemon juice
1 cup oil
Proceed as for making mayonnaise beating the yolks until they are thick and sticky, then beating in the mustard, salt, and vinegar or lemon juice. Finally beat in the oil, drop by drop at first.
¼ cup whipping cream, sour cream, or beef, chicken, or fish stock
1½ Tb finely minced shallot or green onions
1½ Tb capers
3 to 4 Tb minced parsley, tarragon, basil, etc.; or dill only
The soft-boiled egg whites, chopped or seived
Gradually beat the additional liquid into the sauce. Beat in the rest of the ingredients. Season to taste.
SAUCE VINAIGRETTE[French Dressing]
For: salads and simple marinades
The basic French dressing of France is a mixture of good wine vinegar, good oil, salt, pepper, fresh green herbs in season, and mustard if you like it. Garlic is employed usually only in southern France. Worcestershire, curry, cheese, and tomato flavorings are not French additions, and sugar is heresy.
The usual proportion of vinegar to oil is one to three, but you should establish your own relationship. Lemon juice or a mixture of lemon and vinegar may be used, and the oil may be a tasteless salad oil, or olive oil. For salads, make the dressing in the empty bowl or a jar, so that all ingredients are well blended and flavored before the salad is mixed with the dressing. And be sure the salad greens are perfectly dry so the dressing will adhere to the leaves. Salad dressings are always best when freshly made; if they stand around for several days they tend to acquire a rancid taste.
For about ½ cup
½ to 2 Tb good wine vinegar or a mixture of vinegar and lemon juice
⅛ tsp salt
Optional: ¼ tsp dry mustard
6 Tb salad oil or olive oil
Big pinch of pepper
Either beat the vinegar or lemon juice in a bowl with the salt and optional mustard until the salt is dissolved, then beat in the oil by droplets, and season with pepper, or place all ingredients in a screw-top jar and shake vigorously for 30 seconds to blend thoroughly.
Optional: 1 to 2 Tb minced green herbs, such as parsley, chives, tarragon, basil; or pinch of dried herbs.
Stir in the optional herbs and correct seasoning just before dressing the salad.
For: cold or hot boiled beef, boiled chicken, boiled fish, pig’s feet, calf’s head, and vegetables
1 cup vinaigrette
1 tsp chopped capers
1 tsp very finely minced shallot or green onions
2 Tb minced fresh green herbs, parsley, chives, tarragon, chervil, or parsley only
Stir all the ingredients into the vinaigrette and taste for seasoning.
For: cold eggs, vegetables, and cold or hot fish
1 egg yolk
4 Tb whipping cream or sour cream
½ cup vinaigrette
Lemon juice to taste
2 Tb minced fresh green herbs, parsley, chives, tarragon, chervil, burnet, or just dill
Beat the egg yolk and cream in a bowl until thoroughly blended. Then beat in the vinaigrette in a stream of droplets as though making a mayonnaise. Season to taste with lemon juice, and stir in the herbs.
For: cold beef, pork, and vegetables
Rinse a small mixing bowl in hot water. Add the mustard and beat with a wire whip, adding the water by droplets.
⅓ to ½ cup olive oil or salad oil
Again by droplets, beat in the olive oil to make a thick, creamy sauce.
Salt and pepper
Lemon juice
1 to 2 Tb parsley or minced fresh green herbs
Beat in salt, pepper, and lemon juice to taste. Then beat in the herbs.
BEURRE BLANC-BEURRE NANTAIS[White Butter Sauce]
For: boiled fish originally, but now for all kinds of fish and shellfish, and vegetables such as asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, as well as for sautés of veal, chicken, kidneys, livers, and so forth.
This famous sauce originated in Nantes, on the Loire River, and is traditionally served with pike, brochet au beurre blanc. Warm, thick, creamy, and butter-colored, the original sauce is only butter creamed with shallots, wine vinegar, lemon, and seasonings. The idea was taken up by nouvelle cuisine chefs in the early seventies because it is a far easier sauce system than the long-simmered classics, and it is delicious with so many dishes. Rather than a lemon and vinegar base, you use a strong reduction of fish or meat juices—the residue, for instance, of sautéed chicken livers or foie gras deglazed with wine and shallots and, perhaps, a dash of wine vinegar all reduced almost to a syrup; this is then enriched by the beating in of a large quantity of butter. It is, in fact, the usual buttered deglazing sauce, but rather than beating in 2 or 3 tablespoons of butter for 4 to 6 servings, you might add as much as half a pound. With butter at 100 calories per tablespoon, an otherwise simple sauté can be marvelously yet astronomically (even lethally) fattening; but, as we imply in most of our recipes, “the amount of butter is up to you.”
The trick in making a beurre blanc is to prevent the butter from turning oily like melted butter; it must retain its warm, thick, creamy consistency. A chemical process takes place once the base is boiled down and the acids are well concentrated so that the milk solids remain in suspension rather than sinking to the bottom of the pan. We give two methods here, first the classic way where the butter is slowly creamed in, and second the newer fast-boil system. In either case you may beat in more butter than the amount given, but if you beat in less you may have too acid-tasting a sauce.
For about 1 cup
The flavor base
A 6-cup medium-weight, stainless saucepan
2½ Tb white-wine vinegar
2½ Tb dry white wine, vermouth, or lemon juice
1 Tb very finely minced shallots or green onions
½ tsp salt
⅛ tsp white pepper
2 Tb butter
Boil the liquid, shallots or onions, and seasonings with the butter until reduced to a syrupy consistency—about 1½ tablespoons should remain.
The butter—Added the classic way
A wire whip
8 ounces (2 sticks) best quality unsalted butter, well chilled, and cut into 16 pieces
Salt, pepper, and lemon juice as needed
Remove saucepan from heat and immediately beat in 2 pieces of chilled butter. As the butter softens and creams in the liquid, beat in another piece. Then set the saucepan over very low heat and, beating constantly, continue adding successive pieces of butter as each previous piece has almost creamed into the sauce. The sauce will be thick and ivory-colored, the consistency of a light hollandaise. Immediately remove from heat as soon as all the butter has been used. Beat in additional seasonings to taste.
OR—Adding butter—The fast-boil way
Make the same flavor base described above, and cut the same amount of butter into pieces; however, the butter need not be chilled. Bring the reduced flavor base to the fast boil and start beating in butter piece by piece—it will at once produce thick creamy bubbles. When all the butter has been added, boil for 2 seconds only and pour the sauce into a bowl or another saucepan to stop the cooking. (If you continue boiling you will reduce the sauce base liquid to nothing and the butter will quickly clarify itself—no more creamy sauce.)
Holding the sauce. It will thin out and turn oily almost at once if you reheat it or if you keep it too warm. Hold it over barely tepid water, or place it near the faint heat of a gas pilot light, or on the slightly warm shelf over a cooktop. If it does thin out, cream it by beating a spoonful of sauce in a cold mixing bowl, gradually beat in the rest by very small spoonfuls; reheat it by beating in dribbles (2 to 3 tablespoons in all) of hot liquid such as wine, concentrated meat juices, or heavy cream.
For: broiled or boiled fish, asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower
A minor variation of beurre blanc, and very nice with fish or vegetables.
For about ½ cup
A 2- to 4-cup, medium-weight, enameled saucepan
¼ cup lemon juice
⅛ tsp salt
Pinch of white pepper
Boil down the lemon juice with the salt and pepper until it has reduced to 1 tablespoon.
A wire whip
4 ounces (1 stick) chilled butter cut into 8 pieces
Remove from heat and immediately beat in 2 pieces of chilled butter. Set over very low heat and beat in the rest of the butter, a piece at a time, to make a thick, creamy sauce. Immediately remove from heat.
2 to 3 Tb hot fish or vegetable stock or hot water
Just before serving, beat in the hot liquid by driblets to warm the sauce. Correct seasoning and serve in a barely warmed sauceboat.
[Brown Butter Sauce]
For: shirred eggs, calf’s brains, boiled or sautéed fish, chicken breasts, vegetables
A properly made brown butter sauce has a deliciously nutty smell and taste, but is never black despite the poesy of the title. When you heat butter to the boil, its milk solids begin to darken from golden nutty, noisette, to golden brown, noir, but you never let it darken to black, burned, and bitter. It is a quick sauce, and you can make it right in the pan when you are serving it over browned foods like liver or sautéed chicken breasts. For pale foods like poached eggs or poached calf’s brains, make it separately and pour the browned butter off the dark sediment in the pan.
For about ¾ cup, serving 6 to 8
6 ounces (1½ sticks) butter
Salt and pepper
3 to 4 Tb fresh minced parsley
Making the sauce in the sauté pan—just before serving
Cut the butter into pieces, and add to pan after food has been sautéed and removed. Salt and pepper food if necessary, and sprinkle the parsley over it. Holding sauté pan by handle, swirl over moderate heat as butter foams up; it will begin to color as foam subsides. At the moment the butter is a nutty brown—a matter of seconds—pour it over the food. Then add the vinegar, lemon juice or capers to the pan, rapidly boil down to reduce excess acidity, pour over the brown butter, and serve at once.
Making the sauce separately—may be done in advance
Cut the butter into pieces and add to a small saucepan. Swirl pan by its handle over moderate heat as butter melts and foams up. Continue cooking for a few seconds as foam subsides and butter starts to color. As soon as it is a nutty brown, remove from heat and let sediment settle for a moment. Either pour clear brown butter over hot food that you have seasoned and sprinkled with parsley, or pour the butter off its sediment and into a bowl or another pan. Rinse out butter pan, add vinegar, lemon juice or capers, and boil down rapidly to reduce excess acidity. Either pour over the food and serve; or pour the browned butter back in, set aside, and reheat before serving.
Butter can be put to a variety of appetizing uses when it has been creamed with herbs, wine, mustard, egg yolks, shellfish meat, or other flavorings.
On Hot Dishes: Place a piece of cold flavored butter on top of grilled fish or meat just as it is sent to the table.
For Basting: Baste meat, fish, or mushrooms with flavored butter as it cooks in oven.
Sauce and Soup Enrichment: Stir flavored butter into a sauce or soup just before serving.
Egg Filling or Sandwich Spread: Cream butter, egg yolks, and herbs together and use as a filling for hard-boiled eggs, or as a sandwich spread.
Decorations: Fill a pastry bag with chilled but still malleable flavored butter and squeeze it out in fancy designs to decorate appetizers or cold dishes.
Cutout Designs: Spread flavored butter on a plate and chill it. Then dip a knife or cutter in hot water and form fancy shapes for canapés or cold dishes.
The butter must always be creamed or beaten before the flavoring is added to it. You can blend the butter to a cream in an electric beater, pound it in a bowl with a pestle, or mash it, a bit at a time, with the back of a wooden spoon, then beat it vigorously until it is light and creamy. Then the flavorings and the butter are creamed together, and the mixture is put in a cool place to firm up. If it is refrigerated, it will become as hard as an ordinary piece of chilled butter.
For: kidneys, liver, steaks, broiled fish, and sauce enrichments
½ cup butter
1 to 2 Tb prepared mustard, the strong Dijon type
Salt and pepper to taste
Optional: 2 Tb fresh minced parsley or mixed green herbs
Cream the butter well. A half-teaspoon at a time, beat in the mustard. Beat in seasonings and optional parsley or mixed herbs to taste.
For: broiled fish, egg fillings, sandwiches, sauce enrichments
½ cup butter
2 Tb mashed canned anchovies or 1 Tb anchovy paste
Pepper
Lemon juice to taste
Optional: 1 to 2 Tb minced parsley or mixed green herbs
Cream the butter well. A half-teaspoon at a time, beat in the anchovies or anchovy paste. Season to taste with pepper, drops of lemon juice, and optional herbs.
For: broiled or boiled fish, steaks, hamburgers, lamb chops, boiled potatoes, canapés, sauce and soup enrichments
The smoothest and best-tasting result will be obtained if the garlic is pounded to a paste with a pestle and the butter is gradually pounded into it. A garlic press may be used if you have not the time or patience to pound, but the result will not be as good either in flavor or in texture.
2 to 8 cloves garlic
1 quart boiling water
Set the unpeeled cloves of garlic in the boiling water, bring to the boil for 5 seconds. Drain, peel, and rinse under cold water. Bring to the boil again for 30 seconds, drain, and rinse. Pound to a smooth paste in a mortar (or put through a garlic press).
½ cup butter
Salt and pepper
Optional: 1 to 2 Tb minced parsley or mixed green herbs
Pound or cream the butter and garlic together. Season to taste with the salt, pepper, and optional herbs.
For: sandwiches, canapés, hard-boiled eggs, and general decoration
Cream the butter well.
4 sieved hard-boiled egg yolks
Salt and pepper
Optional: 1 to 2 Tb minced chives or mixed green herbs.
Beat the sieved egg yolks into the butter and season to taste with salt, pepper, and optional herbs.
[Parsley Butter]
[Mixed Herb Butter]
[Tarragon Butter]
For: broiled meats and fish, and for sauce and soup enrichments
½ cup butter
1 Tb lemon juice
2 to 3 Tb fresh minced parsley, or mixed green herbs, or tarragon (or dried tarragon and fresh parsley)
Salt and pepper
Cream the butter. Drop by drop, beat in the lemon juice. Then beat in the herbs, and season to taste with salt and pepper.
[Tarragon Butter with Meat Flavoring]
For: broiled meats and fish
Ingredients for the preceding butter using tarragon
Drop by drop, beat the meat glaze into the tarragon butter.
For: snails, broiled meats and fish; for basting baked or broiled fish or mushrooms; for broiled mussels, clams, or oysters
½ cup butter
2 Tb minced shallots or green onions
1 to 3 cloves mashed garlic, depending on your taste for garlic
2 Tb minced parsley
Salt and pepper
Cream the butter well. Twist the shallots or onions into a ball in the corner of a towel to extract their juice. Beat them into the butter with the garlic and parsley. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
For: steaks, hamburgers, liver, and enrichment of brown sauces
¼ cup red wine
1 Tb minced shallot or green onions
1 Tb meat glaze or ½ cup brown stock or canned beef bouillon
Big pinch of pepper
Boil the wine with the shallots or onions, meat flavoring, and pepper until the liquid has reduced to about 1 ½ tablespoons. Let it cool.
½ cup butter
1 to 2 Tb minced parsley
Salt and pepper
Cream the butter well, then beat it, a tablespoon at a time, into the wine flavoring. Beat in the parsley, and season to taste.
[Shallot Butter with White Wine]
For: steaks, hamburgers, liver, and enrichment of brown sauces
Ingredients for the preceding shallot butter, but substitute dry white wine or vermouth for the red wine
Follow the preceding recipe, then proceed to the optional next step.
Optional: 3 to 4 Tb diced beef marrow softened for 3 or 4 minutes in hot salted water
Stir in the optional beef marrow along with the final seasonings.
For: sandwich spreads, canapés, hard-boiled eggs, decoration of cold dishes; for enrichment of shellfish sauces and bisques, and canned and frozen shellfish soups
Shellfish butters are made with the cooked debris, such as legs, chests, eggs, and green matter of lobster, crab, crayfish, or shrimps. The red shells color the butter a creamy rose, and both shell and bits of flesh give a lovely flavor to the mixture. You can also make shellfish butter with the meat alone, and color the butter with a bit of tomato paste.
Traditionally, the shells and meat are placed in a large marble mortar, and are pounded into a purée with a heavy wooden pestle. Then they are pounded with the butter so every bit is thoroughly mixed together. Finally the whole mass is forced through a fine-meshed drum sieve to remove all minute pieces of shell. This long and arduous process needs no further explanation. You just pound; the result is exquisite. An excellent butter may be made in an electric blender in a fraction of the time:
For about ⅔ cup
1 cup cooked shellfish debris OR ½ cup cooked, whole, unpeeled shrimp Or ½ cup cooked shellfish meat and 1½ Tb tomato paste
Chop the debris or meat into ¼-inch pieces, or put it through a meat grinder.
¼ lb (½ cup) hot melted butter
Fill the electric blender jar with hot water to heat it thoroughly. Empty and dry quickly. Then add the shellfish. Immediately pour in the hot melted butter, cover, and blend at top speed. The butter will cream into a stiff paste in a few seconds. Pour the mixture into a saucepan, heat until the butter has warmed and melted. Blend again. Repeat, if you feel it necessary.
Rub through a very fine sieve, extracting as much butter and shellfish meat as possible. As the butter cools and partially congeals, beat it with a wooden spoon. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
(*) May be frozen.
Second pressing
To extract the remaining butter and flavor from the debris left in the sieve, steep the debris in an equal amount of almost simmering water for 5 minutes in a saucepan over very low heat. Strain, and chill. The congealed butter on top of the liquid may be used for sauce enrichments. The liquid itself may serve as the basis for a fish stock.
Following is a list of regional or special sauces described in recipes elsewhere in this book.
Sauce Speciale à l’Ail pour Gigot, a special garlic sauce for roast lamb
Sauce Moutarde à la Normande, a cream and mustard sauce for pork
Sauce Nénette, cream, mustard, and tomato sauce for pork or boiled beef
Sauce Fondue de Fromage, a creamy, wine-flavored cheese sauce with a whiff of garlic, in the Poached Egg section. This is also good for vegetables, fish, chicken, or pastas which are to be gratinéed under a broiler, or as a spread for hot hors d’oeuvres that are to be browned quickly in the oven or under the broiler.
Sauce Chaud-froid, Blanche-neige, a reduction of heavy cream, meat, poultry, or fish stock, and tarragon, plus gelatin. For coating cold chicken, fish, or cold molded mousses. This is an excellent cold sauce, and in our opinion far more delicate than the traditional sauce chaud-froid made from a flour-thickened velouté. See the recipes for cold breast of chicken on this page, for crab on this page, and for fish mousse on this page.
The wonderful flavor of good French food is the result, more often than not, of the stock used for its cooking, its flavoring, or its sauce. The French term fonds de cuisine means literally the foundation and working capital of the kitchen. A stock is the liquid obtained from the simmering together of meat, bones—or fish trimmings—with vegetables, seasonings, and water. This liquid, strained, and boiled down to concentrate its flavor if necessary, is the basis for soups, the moistening element for stews, braised meats, or vegetables, and the liquid used in making all the sauces that have a meat or fish flavoring. Stocks are extremely easy to make, and can simmer quietly by themselves with little or no attention from the cook. They may be frozen and stored for weeks, or they may be boiled down until all their water content has evaporated, and they become a glace de viande, or flavor concentrate.
SUBSTITUTES FOR HOMEMADE STOCK
If you do not have a homemade stock in the larder, you can always use canned beef bouillon, canned chicken broth, canned mushroom broth, or bottled clam juice. Such economical substitutes for stock are not usually available to French cooks, and when simmered with meats, or with wine and aromatic vegetables, these canned alternatives are entirely satisfactory. A recipe for improving canned beef bouillon is on this page; for canned chicken broth; and for bottled clam juice. Bouillon cubes are less successful, but they should certainly be used in an emergency. Canned consommé tends to be sweet and we do not recommend it.
INGREDIENTS FOR MAKING STOCKS
The most luxurious stocks are made from fresh soup bones, fresh meat, and vegetables. But unless you intend to make a stock for an absolutely remarkable consommé, use what you have on hand and add any fresh ingredients you wish to buy. It is a good idea to make a collection in the freezer of beef, veal, and poultry bones, and meat scraps. Then when a sufficient amount has accumulated, you can boil up a stock. Both meat and bones give flavor, and the bones, in addition, contain a certain amount of gelatin which gives body to the stock. Raw veal bones, especially the knuckle, and calf’s feet, if you can find them, contain the most gelatin. If you want a stock that will jell naturally, include these in the proportions listed.
A few pork bones may be added to the stock kettle, but too much pork tends to give the stock a sweet flavor. Lamb or ham bones should not be used; their flavor is too strong for a general-purpose stock. But lamb or ham stocks are made in the same way as simple stock.
Carrots, onions, celery, and leeks are the usual soup vegetables. A parsnip or two may be included if you wish. Starchy vegetables will cloud the stock. Turnips, cauliflower, and the cabbage family in general have too strong a flavor for a general-purpose stock.
THE PRESSURE COOKER
One would expect a pressure cooker to be the ideal stock-making instrument; but our experiments have shown otherwise. After about 45 minutes of cooking under 15 pounds of pressure, a meat stock acquires its maximum pressure-cooked flavor. To reach its optimum flavor, it must then be simmered quietly in an open pot an hour or two more. Poultry stock, in our experience, acquires an unpleasant flavor if cooked for more than 20 minutes under 15 pounds of pressure. After this lapse of time the pressure should be released and the stock allowed to simmer, uncovered, for an hour or so longer.
FONDS DE CUISINE SIMPLE[Simple Meat Stock]
This is the general formula for a simple stock made from a miscellaneous collection of bones and meat scraps. It may be employed for meat sauces, the braising of meats and vegetables, the flavoring of soups, and for deglazing a roasting pan. The stock may be made from bones alone, but will have more character if some meat is included; ideal proportions are about half and half. The more elaborate stocks follow exactly the same cooking procedure.
For 2 to 3 quarts
3 quarts of meat and bones chopped into 2- to 3-inch pieces (raw or cooked veal or beef bones and meat, and/or poultry carcasses, scraps, and giblets)
An 8- to 10-quart kettle
Cold water
Place the meat and bones in the kettle and add cold water to cover them by 2 inches. Set over moderate heat. As the liquid comes slowly to the simmer, scum will start to rise. Remove it with a spoon or ladle for 5 minutes or so, until it almost ceases to accumulate.
2 tsp salt
2 medium-sized scraped carrots
2 medium-sized peeled onions
2 medium-sized celery stalks
The following tied in washed cheesecloth:
¼ tsp thyme
1 bay leaf
6 parsley sprigs
2 unpeeled garlic cloves
2 whole cloves
Optional: 2 washed leeks
Add all the ingredients at the left, and more water if the liquid does not cover the ingredients by a full inch. When liquid is simmering again, skim as necessary. Partially cover the kettle, leaving a space of about 1 inch for steam to escape. Maintain liquid at a very quiet simmer—just a bubble or two of motion at the surface—for 4 to 5 hours or more. Accumulated fat and scum may be skimmed off occasionally. Boiling water should be added if the liquid evaporates below the level of the ingredients.
Never allow the liquid to boil; fat and scum incorporate themselves into the stock and will make it cloudy.
Cooking may be stopped at any time, and continued later.
Never cover the kettle airtight unless its contents have cooled completely, or the stock will sour.
When your taste convinces you that you have simmered the most out of your ingredients, strain the stock out of the kettle into a bowl.
TO DEGREASE
Either let the stock settle for 5 minutes, remove the fat from its surface with a spoon or ladle, then draw scraps of paper toweling over the top of the stock to blot up the last globules of fat;
Or set the stock, uncovered, in the refrigerator until the fat has hardened on the surface and can be scraped off.
FINAL FLAVORING
Taste the degreased stock for strength. If its flavor is weak, boil it down to evaporate some of its water content and to concentrate its strength. Correct seasoning, and it is ready to use.
When the stock is cold, cover and refrigerate it, or bottle and freeze it. Stock kept in the refrigerator must be brought to the boil every 3 or 4 days to keep it from spoiling.
The following are traditional recipes for classical stocks made with fresh ingredients. You can, of course, vary the proportions according to your pocket-book and store of leftover bones and meat scraps. These are all simmered in exactly the same way as the simple stock in the preceding master recipe.
White stock is used when you want to make a particularly fine white velouté sauce or soup. Raw veal releases a tremendous amount of gray and granular scum that can cloud your stock if it is not completely removed. The easiest way to deal with this problem is to blanch the veal as described here.
For 2 to 3 quarts
3 lbs. lean, raw veal shank meat
4 lbs. cracked, raw veal bones
Place the meat and bones in a kettle. Cover with cold water, bring to the boil and boil slowly for 5 minutes. Drain, and rinse the bones and meat under cold water to remove all scum. Rinse the kettle clean.
Same vegetables, herbs, and seasonings as for the master recipe
Place the bones and meat again in the kettle, cover with cold water, bring to the simmer, and skim as necessary. Then add the vegetables, herbs, and seasonings. Simmer the stock for 4 to 5 hours or more as described in the master recipe.
[White Poultry Stock]
This stock is used for soups and sauces. Employ the same method and ingredients as for the preceding white veal stock, but add a whole or parts of a stewing hen to the kettle along with the vegetables. The chicken may be removed when tender, and the stock simmered several hours longer.
Brown stock is used for brown sauces, consommés, and for the braising of vegetables and red meats. To give the stock a good color, the meat, bones, and vegetables are browned before they go into the kettle, otherwise the cooking procedure is the same as for a simple stock, which may also be turned into a brown stock if you brown the ingredients.
For 3 to 4 quarts
A shallow roasting pan
3 lbs. beef shank meat
3 to 4 lbs. cracked beef and veal bones
2 scrubbed, quartered carrots
2 halved, peeled onions
Heat oven to 450 degrees. Arrange the meat, bones, and vegetables in the roasting pan and place in the middle portion of the oven. Turn the ingredients occasionally so they will brown evenly, in 30 to 40 minutes.
An 8- to 10-quart kettle
Remove from oven and drain fat out of roasting pan. Transfer the browned ingredients to a soup kettle. Pour a cup or two of water into the pan, set over heat, and scrape up all coagulated browning juices. Pour them into the kettle.
Then, following the procedure in the master recipe cover the ingredients in the kettle with cold water, bring to the simmer, skim. Add the ingredients at the left and proceed with the recipe. Simmer the stock 4 to 5 hours or more.
[Brown Poultry Stock]
The recipe for a simple brown poultry stock is in the Poultry chapter. You will note that poultry bones and scraps should be browned in a skillet, as they tend to burn and to acquire an unpleasant flavor if browned in the oven.
Meat glaze is any one of the preceding stocks boiled down until it has reduced to a syrup that becomes a hard jelly when it is cold. Three quarts of stock will reduce to 1½ cups or less of glaze, so it is easily stored. Half a teaspoon stirred into a sauce or a soup will often give it just that particular boost of flavor which it lacks. Meat glaze dissolved in hot water may always be used in place of stock. It is thus a most useful commodity to have on hand and almost invariably has a better flavor than commercial meat extracts and bouillon cubes.
2 to 3 quarts of any homemade stock
Strain the stock and degrease it thoroughly. Bring it to the boil in an uncovered saucepan and boil it slowly until it has reduced to about 1 quart. Strain it through a very fine sieve into a smaller saucepan and continue to boil it down until it has reduced to a syrup which coats the spoon lightly. Watch it during the last stages to be sure it does not burn. Strain it into a jar. When it is cold and has turned to a jelly, cover and refrigerate, or freeze it.
Meat glaze will keep for weeks under refrigeration. If it develops a few spots of mold, no harm is done. Pry it out of its jar, wash it under warm water. Then simmer it in a saucepan over low heat with a spoonful of water until it has again reduced to a thick syrup.
Clarification du Bouillon
If you wish to serve a rich homemade consommé, jellied soup, or aspic, you should clarify your stock so it is beautifully clear and sparkling. This is accomplished by beating egg whites into cold stock, then heating it to just below the simmer for 15 minutes. The egg-white globules dispersed into the stock act as a magnet for all its minute cloudy particles. These gradually rise to the surface, leaving a crystal-clear liquid below them.
Clarification is a simple process if you remember that the stock must be perfectly degreased, that all equipment must be absolutely free of grease, and that you must handle the stock gently so the egg whites are not unduly disturbed.
For about 1 quart
5 cups cold stock
Salt and pepper
A very clean 2 ½-quart saucepan
Degrease the stock thoroughly; any fat particles will hinder the clarification process. Taste carefully for seasoning and oversalt slightly if stock is to be served cold; salt loses savor in a cold dish.
A very clean 2-quart mixing bowl
A wire whip
2 egg whites
Optional: ¼ cup or 2 ounces of absolutely lean, scraped, or minced beef
¼ cup minced green leek tops or green onion tops
2 Tb minced parsley
½ Tb tarragon or chervil
Beat 1 cup of stock in the mixing bowl with the egg whites and add optional ingredients for richer flavor. Bring the rest of the stock to the boil in the saucepan. Then, beating the egg-white mixture, gradually pour on the hot stock in a very thin stream. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and set over moderate heat. Until the stock reaches the simmer, agitate it slowly and continually with a wire whip so that the egg whites, which will begin to turn white, are being constantly circulated throughout the liquid. Immediately the simmer is reached, stop stirring. The egg whites now will have mounted to the surface. Gently move the saucepan to the side of the heat so that one edge of the liquid is barely bubbling. In 5 minutes, rotate the saucepan a quarter turn. Turn it again in 5 minutes, and once more for a final 5 minutes.
5 layers of well-washed, damp cheesecloth
A very clean colander
A very clean 3-quart bowl
A very clean ladle
⅓ cup Madeira, port, or cognac
Line the colander with the cheesecloth and place it over the bowl. The colander should be of a size so that its bottom will remain above the surface of the liquid which is to be poured into the bowl. Very gently ladle the stock and egg whites into the cheesecloth, disturbing the egg whites as little as possible. The clarified stock will drain through the cheesecloth, leaving the egg-white particles behind. Allow the egg whites to drain undisturbed for 5 minutes, then remove the colander, and stir the wine or cognac into the clarified stock.
Gelée
Calf’s feet and veal knuckles contain enough natural gelatin to make a stock jell by itself; pork rind helps the process. They are added to simmer with any of the stocks and will provide about 3 quarts of jelly. Prepare them as follows:
These can usually be ordered from your butcher, and come skinned and cleaned. Scrub them under cold water. Soak them for 8 hours in several changes of cold water. Then cover them with cold water, boil for 5 minutes, and wash under cold water. They are now ready to use, and are added to the stock along with the vegetables.
Or 1 lb. cracked veal knuckles
Cover the knuckles with cold water, boil for 5 minutes, then wash under cold water. Add the knuckles to the stock along with the vegetables.
And ¼ lb. fresh or salt pork rind
Scrub the pork rind in cold water. Cover with cold water and simmer for 10 minutes. Rinse under cold water. Add the rind to the stock along with the vegetables, calf’s feet, or knuckles.
Plain stock, clarified stock, canned bouillon, and canned consommé are turned into aspic (or meat jelly) by adding unflavored gelatin in the following proportions:
(1 envelope of powdered American gelatin equals ¼ ounce, 8 grams, or a scant tablespoon. 1 sheet of French gelatin equals 2 grams; 4 sheets are the equivalent of 1 envelope of powdered gelatin.)
For jellied soup: 1 envelope of gelatin for each 3 cups of liquid
For aspics or for the decoration of cold dishes: 1 envelope of gelatin for each 2 cups of liquid
For lining a mold: 1 envelope of gelatin for each 1½ cups of liquid
Sprinkle 1 envelope of gelatin into ¼ to ½ cup of cold stock and let it soften for 3 to 4 minutes. Then blend it into the rest of the stock and stir over moderate heat for several minutes until the gelatin has completely dissolved and the liquid is absolutely free of granules.
If you are living in France, you will usually buy gelatin in sheets. Soak the sheets in cold water for about 10 minutes, until they are soft. Drain them, then stir them in the stock over gentle heat until the gelatin has completely dissolved.
The wine used for flavoring a jelly is almost always port, Madeira, or cognac. From 1 to 2 tablespoons per cup is usually sufficient. Stir the wine or cognac into the hot stock after the gelatin has been dissolved. As most of the alcohol will evaporate, this small additional amount of liquid will not disturb the proportions of gelatin.
Always test out a jelly before using it; the few minutes you spend can save you from disaster. Pour ½ inch of jelly into a chilled saucer and refrigerate it for about 10 minutes until it has set. Then break it up with a fork and let it sit at room temperature for 10 minutes. For jellied soups it should hold its shape softly. For aspics its broken lumps should stand alone, but not be rubbery. A jelly that is to line a mold should be stiffer, so it can support the ingredients it is to enclose. If the jelly is too hard, add unjellied stock and test again. If the jelly is too soft, add more gelatin and test again.
[White-wine Fish Stock]
The following proportions are for the production of a fine, well-flavored fish stock to be used as the basis of a fish velouté sauce. A smaller quantity of fish would produce a lighter stock suitable for fish-poaching, or fish soups.
For about 2 cups
A 6- to 8-quart enameled or stainless steel saucepan or kettle
2 pounds (about 2 quarts) lean, fresh fish, fish heads, and/or bones and trimmings (halibut, whiting, or flounder are recommended, or use frozen fish of good quality. Fresh or cooked shellfish leftovers may be included.)
1 thinly sliced onion
6 to 8 parsley stems—not the leaves, which will darken the stock
1 tsp lemon juice
¼ tsp salt
1 cup dry white wine or ⅔ cup dry white vermouth
Cold water to cover ingredients
Optional: ¼ cup fresh mushroom stems
Place all the ingredients in the saucepan or kettle. Bring to the simmer, skim, then simmer uncovered for 30 minutes. Strain through a fine sieve, and correct seasoning. Fish stock may be refrigerated or frozen. If refrigerated, boil it up every 2 days to keep it from spoiling.
A good substitute for fresh fish stock may be made with bottled clam juice; but remember that clam juice is very salty and becomes even saltier if it is reduced.
For about 2 cups
A 6-cup enameled or stainless steel saucepan
1½ cups bottled clam juice
1 cup water
1 cup dry white wine or ⅔ cup dry white vermouth
1 thinly sliced onion
6 parsley stems
Optional: ¼ cup fresh mushroom stems
Place all ingredients in the saucepan and simmer for 30 minutes, allowing the liquid to reduce to about 2 cups. Strain, and correct seasoning. If very salty, use in diluted form.
