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TRUFFLE SAUCE (another way) (Wash half a dozen truffles)
Wash half a dozen truffles, and peel them, slice them, and lay them in a stewpan with one or two shallots or a little onion and parsley, a piece of butter, some salt, and a glassful of wine. Let the truffles stew, closely covered, till reduced and soft, then add enough gravy and water or broth, some flour thickening, and a little grated ginger. Boil the sauce again for ten minutes, and skim off the fat.
A short list of practical notes for cooking this sauce today, where the quantities are given by the piece rather than by weight.
- How many truffles that isSix peeled truffles might total roughly 3-5 oz (85-140 g), though the recipe gives no size. Truffles were more freely available to a well-supplied kitchen then than now; at current prices, 1 oz of black truffle shaved fine, plus the peelings, will flavour the same volume of sauce.
- Do not peel modern trufflesPeeling was routine in period kitchens, whether because truffles arrived caked in soil or simply as standard practice. Brush a fresh truffle clean under cold water instead; the skin carries a good deal of the aroma. If you do peel, simmer the parings in the wine and strain them out.
- "A glassful of wine"Somewhere between 2 and 4 fl oz (60-120 ml); period tables often reckon a wineglassful at the lower end. Madeira, dry sherry or a firm white all suit; the sauce is finished with gravy, so the wine is there to be reduced rather than tasted raw.
- Gravy means meat stockIn Cassell's, "gravy" is a strong brown stock or the reduced juices from a roast, not a thickened pan sauce. Use 1 to 1 1/2 cups of good beef or veal stock, or a mixture of stock and water as the recipe allows.
- Flour thickeningPeriod "flour thickening" could mean flour kneaded with butter, a thin roux, or flour slaked in liquid. Any will do: about 1 tablespoon flour worked into an equal weight of butter, whisked in off the heat in small pieces. Add it gradually; the ten-minute boil the recipe calls for is what cooks out the raw flour taste.
- Keep the stewing gentleThe hinge of the recipe is the first stage: the truffles must sweat closely covered in butter and wine until soft, not fry. Aroma compounds in truffle are volatile, so hold it at a bare simmer and keep the lid on.
- Add the ginger with restraintGrated ginger with truffle reads oddly now but belongs to an older English habit of warming spice in savoury sauces. Start with 1/4 teaspoon; more will bury the truffle entirely.
- Yield and useAbout 1 1/2 cups on the quantities suggested above. The recipe does not say what it accompanies; a sauce of this kind would suit roast game, poultry, sweetbreads or beef.
Truffle sauces appear throughout nineteenth-century English cookery books because truffles were then an ordinary, if seasonal, luxury of the grand kitchen rather than a rarity sold by the gram: French Périgord truffles came in quantity through the winter trade, and English woods produced their own summer truffle, hunted with dogs into the early twentieth century. Cassell's, published for the middle-class household with a cook, gives at least two truffle sauces, this being the plainer stewed version rather than one built on an espagnole base. The grated ginger is often said to be a survival of an older English habit of warming spice in savoury sauces, a practice generally thought to have been in decline as French method took hold.