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Sauce Bordelaise
1 cup sauterne 1 1/2 cup Spanish Sauce 2 tablespoons chopped shallots 2 inches cooked marrow 1/4 teaspoon salt Few grains cayenne Boil the shallots in the wine until reduced one-half, add the Spanish Sauce and cook fifteen minutes, then add seasonings and marrow cut in round slices; boil up once and serve.
A short compound sauce that assumes you already have a pot of Spanish sauce (espagnole) on hand, as a 1900s kitchen would. Everything hinges on that base.
- Spanish SauceThis is espagnole: brown roux moistened with brown stock, with mirepoix and tomato, simmered and strained. The capitalised name implies a base recipe given elsewhere in the same book. A good jarred or homemade demi-glace, loosened with stock, stands in acceptably.
- "Sauterne"In American cookbooks of this era "sauterne" (no final s) was a generic domestic label for white wine rather than the sweet Sauternes of Bordeaux; such wines ranged from dry to off-dry. Use a dry white; a sweet wine will make the reduction cloying. Classic French bordelaise is built on red wine, so this is a white-wine variant.
- Marrow"2 inches cooked marrow" appears to mean a two-inch length of marrow, poached out of the bone and chilled, which is what allows it to be cut in rounds. Ask a butcher for centre-cut marrow bones. Slice it cold into coins so it holds shape.
- The hingeAdd the marrow at the very end and give the sauce only the one boil the recipe calls for. Marrow held at a simmer melts into fat and the rounds disappear, leaving a greasy sauce instead of soft discs suspended in it.
- ShallotsChop them fine. The recipe leaves the shallots in; straining the wine reduction before adding the espagnole would give a smoother sauce. Either is defensible.
- Reduction and timingOne cup of wine down to half a cup takes about 5-8 minutes in a wide pan. The 15-minute simmer after the espagnole goes in is there to cook out raw wine and tighten the sauce; skim the fat that rises.
- YieldSomewhat under 2 cups after the fifteen-minute cook, enough for roughly six to eight portions of fish or grilled beef. It reheats gently but the marrow will not survive a second boil.
Sauce bordelaise takes its name from Bordeaux and its identity from two things: wine and beef marrow. In the classified French system codified in the nineteenth century it is a small sauce built on espagnole, one of the mother sauces, and the marrow garnish is what distinguishes it from a plain wine reduction. Escoffier's version uses red Bordeaux and is served with grilled beef; white-wine variants were commonly directed at fish. Espagnole itself begins with a browned roux, so a sauce like this presumes both patience and a well-stocked kitchen.