Sauce Bordelaise
Versez dans une casserole, 1-2 bouteille de vin de Bordeaux, ajoutez sel, piment, persil, échalotte hâchée. Faites réduire le liquide de moitié ajoutez-y un peu de sauce brune et sauce tomate, passez le tout à l'étamine ou à passoire, coupez en dés 1-4 de livre de Moëlle de bœuf et servez bien chaud.
The great red-wine sauce of Bordeaux — reduced claret, shallots and diced beef marrow — the classic partner to a grilled steak.
- Read the odd fractions“1-2 bouteille” means ½ bottle of Bordeaux (about 1½ cups), and “1-4 de livre” means ¼ pound of beef marrow.
- Use a dry red BordeauxAny dry red Bordeaux (a claret) works; you’re reducing it by half, so the flavor concentrates — don’t use anything you wouldn’t drink.
- Beef marrow, poached and dicedThe moëlle is the soft marrow from beef leg bones. Ask the butcher for marrow bones, scoop it out, dice it, and warm it in the sauce so it just softens without melting away.
- “Sauce brune” = brown sauceA spoon of brown sauce (demi-glace or espagnole) plus a little tomato sauce gives body; lacking those, reduce the wine with a little of this batch’s veal fond.
- Strain before finishingPass the reduction through an étamine (cheesecloth) or fine sieve for a smooth sauce, then add the marrow and serve very hot.
Bordelaise sauce is the taste of France’s greatest wine region put on a plate: red wine, shallots and marrow, most famously spooned over an entrecôte à la bordelaise. The marrow is the signature — a Bordeaux touch that turns a wine reduction into something lush and glossy. Traditionally the region’s cooks would even grill the steak over vine cuttings (sarments) for extra perfume. That a New Orleans book carries the recipe is no surprise: the city’s deep trade in French wine made claret an everyday word on Creole tables.
From page 103 of the 1904 edition.
Original page from the book
