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Espagnole Sauce
Melt two ounces of butter in a stewpan, cut an onion into dice, cut one pound of knuckle of veal, four ounces of lean ham, and half a pound of shin of beef into small pieces, put them into the stewpan with half a pint of stock, and stir the mixture over a brisk fire for about fifteen minutes, until it begins to thicken and the meat to take colour. Then pour in two and a half pints of stock, and bring the whole to boiling point, simmer for three or four minutes, and skim well. Cut a carrot into dice, and add it to the contents of the pan, along with two sprigs of parsley, one sprig of thyme, twelve peppercorns, and half a tea-spoonful of salt, and boil gently for forty minutes. Melt two ounces of butter in a small saucepan, dredge in two ounces of flour, and stir it over the fire until it forms a smooth thick brown roux; add this gradually to the sauce, stirring all the time, and simmer for three or four minutes until the sauce is thick and rich, then strain carefully, skim off every particle of fat, and it is ready for use. Sufficient for about one quart. Probable cost, 3s. (See also SPANISH SAUCE.)
A classic brown sauce built the long way: a mixed-meat stock browned in butter, then thickened with a separately made brown roux. Nothing here is difficult, but the colour and the skimming are what separate a good espagnole from a muddy one.
- The hinge: the rouxTwo ounces butter and two ounces flour cooked slowly to a genuine nut-brown, about 15-20 minutes over medium-low heat, stirring constantly. Rushed over high heat it scorches and turns the whole quart bitter; undercooked it tastes of raw paste and the sauce stays pale.
- Vessels and heatA stewpan is simply a heavy-bottomed saucepan or small casserole with a lid. A "brisk fire" is medium-high heat on a modern burner; "boil gently" means a bare simmer with the surface just trembling.
- UnitsHalf a pint is 10 fl oz British measure (about 1 1/4 US cups); two and a half pints is roughly 50 fl oz, or 1.4 litres. The book's pints are Imperial throughout, so scaling by US pints will leave the sauce short of liquid.
- The meatsKnuckle of veal and shin of beef were bought for gelatine, not flavour alone. Ask a butcher for veal shank or a cut piece of osso buco, plus beef shin; a smoked ham hock or a thick slice of unsmoked gammon stands in for the lean ham. If veal is unavailable, more beef shin plus a couple of split chicken wings gives comparable body.
- StockThree pints of stock is the backbone. Use a good unsalted brown beef or veal stock; commercial cubes will make the finished sauce aggressively salty once it has reduced and been thickened.
- Skimming and strainingSkim after the first boil and again before straining, then strain through a fine sieve or chinois lined with damp muslin. "Every particle of fat" is easiest achieved by chilling the strained sauce and lifting the set fat off the top.
- TimingForty minutes of gentle boiling is what the recipe asks for; a longer simmer will draw more from the meat and bone if you have time. The three or four minutes after the roux goes in is only enough to cook out the flour, so do not expect the sauce to reduce further at that stage.
- Yield and keepingAbout one quart, as the recipe states, which is enough to use as the base for a range of derivative sauces. It freezes well in small containers; the 3s. figure is Victorian pricing and indicates only that this was not a cheap sauce to make.
Espagnole is one of the small group of "mother sauces" codified in nineteenth-century French professional kitchens and set out systematically by Carême and later Escoffier: a brown stock, a brown roux, and a mirepoix, from which dozens of named sauces descend by addition and reduction. The Spanish name is traditionally explained by the story that a Spanish queen's cooks in France insisted on richer brown sauce, or alternatively by the Spanish ham once used in it — both accounts are folklore rather than documented fact. Its inclusion in an English household cookery book reflects the ambition of Victorian English household manuals to teach the French system rather than merely list dishes: a cook who could make espagnole could make demi-glace, sauce Robert, and a dozen others from the same pot. Knuckle of veal and shin of beef were among the cheaper gelatinous cuts available for long simmering.