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Blonde Fish Sauce
Put three table-spoonfuls of white stock into a stewpan, and stew the following ingredients for half an hour over a slow fire:--An onion cut small, two mushrooms, a sprig of parsley, a lemon very thinly sliced, and a glass of white wine. When nearly stewed, add by degrees a cupful of melted butter and the yolks of three eggs well beaten; keep stirring the pan over the fire for four or five minutes, but do not allow the contents to boil. Strain through a sieve, and use it for any kind of fish. Probable cost, 10d.
A wine-and-egg sauce for boiled or poached fish, close in spirit to a loose hollandaise thinned with stock. The whole thing hangs on heat control at the end.
- "Melted butter" is a sauce, not butterIn Victorian English a cupful of melted butter means the standard English butter sauce — butter worked with flour and water or milk into a thickened white sauce. Using plain liquid butter gives a much thinner, oilier result; make about a cup of light roux-based butter sauce instead.
- Do not let it boilOnce the yolks go in, hold the pan below a simmer, around 160-175F, and stir constantly. Above that the yolks scramble and the sauce breaks; four or five minutes off direct heat, or over a pan of hot water, is safer than a slow fire on a modern burner.
- A glass of wineA wineglassful in period books runs from 2 to 4 fl oz. A third to a half cup of dry white wine suits the quantities here; more will make the sauce sharp, since there is only a little stock to balance it.
- Three tablespoons of stockThat is deliberately small — the stock is aromatic liquid, not the body of the sauce. Use a light fish or veal stock, unsalted if possible, and season only after the yolks have thickened.
- The lemonA whole thinly sliced lemon stewed half an hour with the peel and pith will turn bitter. Use half a lemon, or pare a few strips of zest and add the juice at the end, after straining.
- MushroomsTwo mushrooms means two small ones; an ounce or two, sliced, is a reasonable equivalent. They are there for savour and are strained out.
- StrainingStrain while warm through a fine sieve, pressing the solids gently. Do not push the vegetables through — the sauce should stay smooth and pale, which is the whole point of calling it blonde.
- YieldAbout a cup and a quarter of sauce, enough for four to six portions of fish. It will not reheat well; hold it warm over water and use it within the hour.
The name follows French practice, where sauces were often distinguished by colour: brune for those built on browned stock, blanche for flour-and-butter sauces kept white, and blonde for the pale gold in between — here the colour comes from egg yolks and white wine rather than from browning. Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery is a large late-Victorian household compendium, arranged alphabetically. The "probable cost, 10d." is characteristic of the book, which priced nearly every receipt so a mistress could check the kitchen accounts.