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Olive and Almond Sauce
3 tablespoons butter 3 tablespoons flour 1 cup White Stock 1/2 cup cream 1/4 cup shredded almonds 1 teaspoon beef extract 8 olives (stoned and cut in quarters) 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice 1/4 teaspoon salt Few grains cayenne Melt butter, add flour, and pour on gradually White Stock. Just before serving add remaining ingredients. Serve with boiled or steamed fish.
A velouté enriched with cream, finished with olives and almonds at the last moment. The finishing order is the whole point: everything after the roux and stock goes in off the boil.
- White StockA mild veal or chicken stock, unsalted and unbrowned. A good low-sodium chicken stock works; avoid anything dark or heavily seasoned, since the beef extract and olives already carry salt.
- Beef extractA concentrated meat paste of the Bovril or Liebig type, still sold. A teaspoon is enough to shade the sauce and deepen it; more will muddy the white base and push the salt too far.
- Cook the rouxLet the butter and flour bubble together two or three minutes before the stock goes in, then simmer the sauce five to ten minutes. Raw flour is the usual fault in sauces of this vintage. Yield is roughly a cup and a half, enough for four.
- Add the cream off the heat"Just before serving" means the pan should be barely trembling when cream, lemon juice and extract go in. Lemon juice stirred into a cream sauce at a boil risks curdling it.
- Shredded almondsBlanched almonds cut lengthwise into slivers, not the flaked or ground kinds. Toast them dry in a pan until just golden and stir them in at the very end so they keep some crunch.
- Stoned olivesPlain green olives in brine, quartered. Rinse them if they are aggressively salty, and taste the sauce before adding the quarter teaspoon of salt at all.
- CayenneA few grains means a pinch that sharpens rather than heats. Add it with the cream and taste.
- ConsistencyThree tablespoons each of butter and flour to a cup and a half of liquid gives a medium coating sauce. Loosen it with a little extra stock if it needs to pour over fish rather than sit on it.