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Ravigote Sauce, for Hare and Venison
Melt two ounces of butter in a saucepan, and throw into it a moderate-sized onion and carrot chopped small, a tea-spoonful of scraped horse-radish, a pinch of powdered thyme, a bay-leaf, and a little mace. Stir these ingredients over a gentle fire till the onion is tender. Pour in a table-spoonful of vinegar and half a pint of stock, add a little brown thickening, and skim the sauce well. When it is smooth and of the consistency of custard, dissolve a table-spoonful of red currant jelly in it, rub it through a fine sieve, add pepper and salt if required, and serve in a tureen. Time, a few minutes to boil the sauce. Probable cost, 10d. Sufficient for six or eight persons.
A brown game sauce built on a butter-sweated aromatic base, thickened, strained and finished with red currant jelly. It comes together in under half an hour once the stock is to hand.
- The hinge: strain itEverything here is a flavouring, not a garnish. The onion, carrot, horseradish, bay and mace go in whole or chopped and are then rubbed through a sieve and discarded, so the finish should be a smooth glossy sauce with no visible solids. Press hard on the vegetables in the sieve to get the body out of them.
- Half a pint of stockCassell's is British, so this is an imperial half-pint, 10 fl oz or about 1¼ US cups. Two ounces of butter is half a stick. The whole recipe yields roughly a cup of finished sauce, consistent with the stated six to eight servings of a spoonful or two each.
- Brown thickeningVictorian shorthand for a browned flour thickener, flour cooked in butter or drippings until nut-coloured. Substitute about a tablespoon of flour cooked in a tablespoon of butter until it smells toasted.
- "Consistency of custard"Pouring custard, not baked. The sauce should coat the back of a spoon and just leave a trail, not mound.
- Scraped horse-radishFresh root, scraped or rasped fine. Bottled horseradish carries vinegar and often cream or sugar; if you use it, cut the tablespoon of vinegar back and add it at the end.
- MaceThe outer covering of the nutmeg, sold as blade or ground. A blade or two dropped in with the bay is closer to the original than ground mace, and comes out with the sieving.
- SkimmingOnce the stock goes in, the butter and any fat from the stock will rise. Skim repeatedly during the short simmer; the sauce is meant to be clean and shining rather than rich on the lip.
- ServingThe sauce is passed separately in a tureen. It also suits roast duck, goose and mutton. Reheat gently, as the jelly will catch if the pan gets too hot.
The name is misleading to anyone who knows the modern French repertoire: ravigote proper is a sharp green sauce of vinegar, herbs, capers and shallot, either warm as a velouté or cold as a vinaigrette, and the word comes from ravigoter, to revive or perk up. What Cassell's gives here is an English game sauce that might best be placed, loosely, in the poivrade family, brown and slightly sweet, and the ravigote label attaches only loosely by way of the vinegar and the horseradish bite. That kind of drift is common in Victorian household dictionaries, which absorbed French terms faster than French method and applied them to whatever seemed roughly analogous. The red currant jelly is the giveaway that this is a British sauce at heart; the pairing of tart jelly with hare, venison and mutton was long established in English cookery before the French names arrived. The costing in pence, ten for a sauce serving eight, is given alongside the recipe.