Home › Oysters and Shellfish › Brown Sauce
Brown Sauce
1 cupful stock; salt and pepper; 2 tablespoonfuls butter; 2 tablespoonfuls flour.
Cook the flour and butter together until brown, stirring briskly; then add the stock, a spoonful at a time, stirring or beating constantly to prevent it lumping. As soon as it has boiled strain, and serve with meat or vegetables. Used as a basis, with the addition of some ingredients from which the sauce takes its name, this may be the principal part of several meat or fish sauces. If not dark enough, add a little dark roux until it is the desired color.
A basic brown roux sauce — the espagnole family in miniature. Everything depends on how far you take the roux before the liquid goes in.
- The hinge: browning the rouxEqual butter and flour (2 tablespoonfuls each) cooked, stirring briskly as the recipe says, until it smells nutty and darkens toward the colour of an old penny; depending on the heat this may take anywhere from several minutes to a quarter of an hour. Stop short and the sauce tastes pasty; push too far and it turns bitter and loses thickening power.
- Stock matters more than techniqueWith only stock, butter, flour and seasoning, the flavor is entirely the stock's. Use a well-reduced brown beef or veal stock; commercial broth will give a thin, salty result.
- Adding the liquidA spoonful at a time is the old insurance against lumps, and it works, but warm stock added in three or four stages while whisking is quicker and just as smooth.
- "As soon as it has boiled"Two tablespoons of flour to one cup of stock is the classic medium-bodied proportion, though browning the flour costs it some thickening power. The recipe strains the moment it boils; a brief simmer of 10 to 15 minutes past the boil will cook out any raw-flour taste and tighten it further if you prefer.
- StrainingPour through a fine sieve to catch flour specks and any scorched bits from the roux. Skim the fat that rises at the edges before serving.
- Dark roux as coloringThe recipe assumes a jar of deeply browned roux kept on hand for adjusting color. A teaspoon of it, or of caramelized onion or tomato paste cooked dark, does the same job today.
- YieldAbout one cup, allowing a couple of spoonfuls per person. It thickens as it cools; loosen with a spoonful of stock when reheating.
- Building on itTo turn it into a named sauce, finish off the heat with additions rather than boiling them in — mustard, chopped capers, herbs, a splash of Madeira or lemon — so their flavor stays bright.