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VEGETABLE SAUCE (Jus Maigre de Racines)
Put in a saucepan a piece of butter or a little oil, a carrot, a turnip, and an onion, all cut into dice, and two heads of celery. Stir the vegetables well over the fire with a wooden spoon, and when they are properly browned moisten with pea-soup or with boiling water; season with a little salt, let the sauce boil for a few minutes, and pass it through a sieve.
A meatless brown gravy built on root vegetables, from the fasting-day side of the old French kitchen. It is really a quick vegetable stock with colour, and the colour is where the flavour comes from.
- The hinge: brown properly"Properly browned" means deep amber edges on the diced roots and the onion, not merely softened; the caramelisation is the sauce's main source of savour and colour. Use medium-high heat, a wide pan, and expect something like 12-20 minutes with regular stirring; a little sticking and deglazing helps.
- No quantities are givenThe original assumes a cook's judgement. A workable reading is 1 large carrot, 1 medium turnip, 1 onion, and celery to match, in a good knob of butter, moistened with roughly 1 pint (2 cups) liquid; the yield will be somewhat less than the liquid put in.
- Two heads of celeryA Victorian "head" of celery is a whole bunch, and was likely smaller than a modern one. One full modern bunch, trimmed, with the leaves included, is probably enough; two may dominate everything else.
- Pea-soup as the liquidThis is the interesting instruction. Thin pea soup, or the cooking liquor from dried split peas, gives the sauce body and a background sweetness that plain water cannot; it stands in for the meat stock the dish is deliberately avoiding. Unsalted vegetable stock is a reasonable substitute.
- Boil longer than "a few minutes"A few minutes will not draw much out of diced roots. Simmer 20-30 minutes, covered, then strain — long enough to extract, short enough that turnip does not turn sulphurous.
- Passing through the sievePress the solids firmly against the sieve with the back of a ladle rather than letting it drip; the pulp that goes through is what thickens the sauce. A fine chinois gives a cleaner result than a blender, which will make it cloudy and grainy.
- Season at the endThe salt goes in with the liquid here, before the boil. If you simmer longer than the original directs, the sauce will reduce; taste after straining and correct then. A spoonful of the browned pan residue or a dash of soy or mushroom ketchup deepens it further if it tastes thin.
Jus maigre is the fasting-day counterpart to jus proper: a gravy made maigre, meaning without meat, for the many days of the Catholic calendar on which flesh was forbidden but a good sauce was still wanted. Racines simply means roots, and the technique is the classic French one of drawing colour and sweetness out of carrot, turnip and onion in fat before wetting them — a browning step comparable to the one that begins a meat espagnole, with the meat removed and pea liquor doing the work of body that bones and gelatine would otherwise do.