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Shallot Sauce, for Tripe, Etc
Skin and mince twelve shallots, and add, if liked, a little piece of garlic the size of a pea. This addition, however, is sometimes objected to. Put them into a saucepan with a little fresh butter, and also a tea-spoonful of finely-grated horse-radish, a table-spoonful of strained lemon-juice, and a little salt, cayenne, and mixed mustard. Stir these ingredients quickly over a brisk fire for five minutes; add gradually a quarter of a pint of milk, and simmer the sauce a few minutes longer. Lift the saucepan from the fire, and let its contents cool for two minutes. Stir into the sauce the yolk of an egg beaten up with a quarter of a pint of cream or milk, and whisk it over the fire for a minute or two, but on no account allow it to boil; serve very hot. Time, altogether, a quarter of an hour.
A sharp, mustardy liaison sauce built to cut the richness of tripe, boiled beef or other plain white offal. The whole thing takes about fifteen minutes and hinges on the last step.
- Never let it boil after the yolk goes inThe egg yolk is a liaison, not a binder that survives heat. Once it is stirred in, hold the pan over low heat and whisk constantly; at a simmer the yolk sets into grains and the sauce curdles beyond rescue. The two-minute cooling before adding it is there for exactly this reason.
- A quarter of a pintImperial measure: 5 fl oz, or about two-thirds of a US cup. The recipe uses it twice, so you need roughly 1 1/4 cups of milk and cream in total.
- Twelve shallotsAssuming small shallots, twelve is roughly 5-6 oz peeled, or three to four of the fat modern banana shallots.
- Mixed mustardPrepared mustard paste, meaning English mustard powder slaked with water rather than a French or American condiment. A teaspoon of made English mustard is the closest match; Dijon will work but is milder and sweeter.
- Horse-radishFresh grated root, whose pungency fades fairly quickly after grating and again when heated. Jarred horseradish in vinegar will do, but drain it first or the added acid will thin the sauce and make the milk more likely to split.
- A brisk fireMedium-high heat. The five minutes is to soften the shallots and take the raw edge off without browning them; this is a white sauce and colour in the shallots will show.
- YieldAbout 1 1/2 cups, enough to sauce tripe or boiled beef for four to six. It does not reheat well once the yolk is in, so make it to serve.
Tripe is the archetype of the cheap, bland cut that wants a sharp sauce: boiled honeycomb tripe has almost no flavour of its own, and onion, mustard or shallot sauces were common accompaniments. The sauce belongs to a family of enriched white sauces thickened with an egg-and-cream liaison rather than flour, a French technique long familiar to English cookery books. The note that garlic "is sometimes objected to" reflects a real period attitude rather than coyness; garlic was often regarded in Victorian British kitchens as a coarse foreign seasoning, and here it is offered only as an optional pea-sized addition.