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Richelieu Sauce
Chop up very fine six ounces of mushrooms lightly fried in butter and one or two truffles peeled. Put into a saucepan two small spoonfuls of veloute sauce (see VELOUTE SAUCE), reduce it slightly, then take it off the fire and mix in the mushrooms and truffles; add three yolks of eggs, well beaten, and boil the sauce for two or three minutes, stirring it all the time. Just before serving mix in a piece of butter, but do not let it boil again. Probable cost, 1s. 6d.
A thickened veloute enriched with egg yolks, mushrooms and truffle. The whole thing hangs on how you handle the yolks.
- Do not actually boil itThe instruction to "boil the sauce for two or three minutes" after adding yolks needs care: three yolks in a small quantity of veloute will curdle if taken much above 180F. Hold it just below a simmer, stir constantly, and pull it as soon as it coats the spoon.
- "Two small spoonfuls" is ambiguousThe size of spoon is not stated, and two tablespoons of veloute would struggle to carry six ounces of mushrooms and three yolks. Increase the veloute as needed and judge by consistency.
- VelouteThe parent sauce is a white roux moistened with veal or chicken stock rather than milk. A well-reduced chicken velvet sauce is the closest substitute; bechamel will taste flat and dairy-heavy here.
- MushroomsSix ounces chopped very fine and fried in butter will throw a good deal of liquid. Cook them until that liquid has gone and they begin to colour, or the sauce will thin as it stands. Cremini give more flavour than white buttons.
- TrufflesFresh black truffle is priced far beyond what this sauce assumes; the original 1s. 6d. was a moderate sum for a sauce. Preserved truffle peelings, or a few drops of truffle juice from the tin, are the honest substitute. Truffle oil is a different flavour altogether.
- Finishing butterThe recipe adds the butter just before serving and warns against boiling again; swirl it in off the heat rather than stirring hard. Reheating after that risks curdling; if the sauce must wait, hold it over warm water in a covered pan.
- YieldSomewhere between a cup and a cup and a half, depending on how the "spoonfuls" are read; enough for four to six servings of poached chicken, veal or sweetbreads.
Cassell's belongs to the era when English kitchens borrowed the French repertoire wholesale, and the compound sauces built on veloute and espagnole were catalogued like species. Names honouring aristocrats were the convention, and "Richelieu" is generally traced to the Cardinal's family, though as with Soubise, Mornay and Colbert the connection is decorative rather than documented and the attached dish shifted from cook to cook: Escoffier's later Richelieu garnish involves stuffed tomatoes and braised lettuce rather than anything like this sauce. The finishing with egg yolks puts this in the family of the classical liaisons, whose one hazard is that yolks are so easily overheated. The truffle is priced into a total of eighteen pence.