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Bigarade Sauce
Take the peel of half a Seville bitter orange, and cut it into strips, put them in a stewpan, with sufficient water to cover, boil for ten minutes, and drain on a sieve. Put in a stewpan half a pint of Espagnole sauce, half a pint of rich stock or roast-meat gravy, and half the juice of the orange. Allow all to reduce to half its quantity, strain, and add the orange peel, a tea-spoonful of lemon juice, and a glass of port wine, season with pepper and salt, boil up again, and serve with roast wild duck or other game. Probable cost, 10d.
A classic bitter-orange sauce for game, built on two half-pints of liquid that reduce to one. Everything depends on the quality of the Espagnole and stock beneath it.
- Imperial measuresCassell's is a British book, so half a pint is 10 fl oz (about 285 ml), not the American 8. The finished sauce reduces to roughly 10 fl oz total, enough for four to six servings alongside a bird.
- A glass of portIn Victorian sauce-making a "glass" of wine means a wine-glass, conventionally about 2 fl oz (60 ml), occasionally up to 4. Start at 2 fl oz and taste; ruby or tawny both work, and the port goes in near the end so it keeps its fruit.
- EspagnoleThe brown mother sauce: a brown roux slackened with brown stock and mirepoix, simmered and skimmed for hours. Making it from scratch is a day's project; a well-reduced, lightly thickened brown veal or game stock gives a comparable result, and a demi-glace diluted to sauce consistency is the closest shortcut.
- Seville orangesThe bitter Seville has a short winter season, roughly January to February, and is mostly sold for marmalade. Frozen Seville juice or the bottled kind sold for marmalade-makers is a fair stand-in; otherwise use the zest of a regular orange plus a little extra lemon juice to restore the sharpness.
- Blanching the peelThe ten-minute boil is not optional decoration. It pulls the harsh pith bitterness out of the julienned zest so the strips read as perfume rather than medicine. Pare the peel thinly, leaving the white behind, and cut it into fine matchsticks before blanching.
- Reduce, then strain, then addThe peel goes back in after straining so it stays visible and distinct in the finished sauce. Reducing by half concentrates salt as well as flavour, which is why the seasoning comes at the end.
- ServingIntended for roast wild duck, and it suits any dark game bird, venison or a rich duck breast. The recipe itself directs you to boil the sauce up again after the port goes in; if you would rather keep more of the wine's fruit, hold it just below a boil instead.
Bigarade is simply the French word for the bitter Seville orange, Citrus × aurantium, the same fruit that gives marmalade its edge and neroli its scent; sauce bigarade is often said to be the ancestor of the restaurant standby canard à l'orange. Cassell's treats it as one of the small compound sauces derived from Espagnole, the brown mother sauce of the French classical repertoire that British professional kitchens had increasingly drawn on by the later nineteenth century. The pairing with wild duck is practical as much as fashionable: bitter citrus and a little port cut through the strong, fatty, sometimes fishy flesh of a wild bird in a way that a plain gravy cannot. The costing of tenpence is a reminder of who this book was written for — a household with a cook, a stockpot always going, and port in the sideboard.