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Piquant Sauce
Mince very finely a table-spoonful of capers, a table-spoonful of shallots, and a table-spoonful of gherkins. Put them into a saucepan with a quarter of a tea-spoonful of pepper and three table-spoonfuls of vinegar, and let them simmer gently for three minutes. Add half a pint of broth or stock, a tea-spoonful of Bovril, a tea-spoonful of the essence of anchovy, and a dessert-spoonful of brown thickening. Boil the sauce until it is thick and smooth, skim carefully, and it is ready for use. If brown thickening is not at hand, mix half an ounce of butter with half an ounce of flour, and stir these ingredients quickly together over a moderate fire until the mixture is brightly coloured; moisten with the stock, and pour it over the gherkins, etc. Time, a quarter of an hour. Sufficient for nearly a pint of sauce. Probable cost, 10d.
A brown sauce sharpened with vinegar and pickles — the classic sauce piquante, here built on stock and a dark roux. Two of its flavourings are Victorian shortcuts that still exist under other names.
- Brown thickeningThis is simply a brown roux, kept ready-made in Victorian kitchens. The recipe's own fallback — equal weights of butter and flour cooked until well coloured — is what you want; take it to the shade of a copper penny, which takes several minutes of steady stirring over a moderate heat.
- Imperial measuresHalf a pint here is 10 fl oz, about 1¼ US cups of stock. A dessert-spoonful is 2 teaspoons; half an ounce each of butter and flour is roughly 1 tablespoon butter to 2 tablespoons flour.
- BovrilStill sold, and still the right thing: a salty beef extract. Any concentrated beef base or a small piece of glace de viande does the same job. Add it after the roux, taste before salting, and remember it carries a good deal of sodium.
- Essence of anchovyA thin bottled anchovy liquid, once a standard store-cupboard item. Anchovy paste thinned with a little water, or one mashed oil-packed fillet, substitutes cleanly. It should not read as fish in the finished sauce.
- The three-minute simmerSimmering the capers, shallots and gherkins in the vinegar first is the hinge of the recipe: it takes the raw edge off the shallot and lets the vinegar reduce slightly. Do not skip it and stir the pickles in at the end, or the sauce tastes of neat vinegar.
- Don't boil it hardThe stated quarter-hour leaves roughly ten minutes after the vinegar simmer; a steady simmer will do the work. A hard rolling boil will drive off the vinegar's brightness; skim the fat that rises rather than stirring it back in.
- Yield and servingNearly an imperial pint, a little over 2 US cups. It is a sauce for plain grilled or roast meat, pork chops, calf's liver, cold beef reheated, or boiled tongue.
Sauce piquante belongs to the family of brown sauces sharpened with vinegar and pickled things codified by French cookery, and taken up in English kitchens as a way of making plain and reheated meat interesting. What dates this particular version is the Bovril: the beef extract was commercialised in Britain in the later 1880s, and by the turn of the century was being used as a seasoning as well as an invalid drink, turning up in sauces in place of the long-simmered meat glaze the older French method demanded. The "brown thickening" kept in a jar and the bottled essence of anchovy point the same way — a professional technique broken into ready-made parts for a household with one cook and no saucier. The "probable cost, 10d." suggests a book aimed at readers running a kitchen to a budget.