Olive Sauce
1 1/2 cups water 1/2 cup tomato 1 tablespoon oil 1 bay leaf 1 Small onion, cut fine 2 tablespoons browned flour 1 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons white flour 1/3 cup sliced olives Mix together all the ingredients except the white flour and the olives, and simmer together for ten minutes, then stir into the mixture the white flour, which has been stirred smooth with a little cold-water. Cook two minutes. Rub through a fine colander or strainer. Add the olives, and hot water to thin if it is too thick.
A meatless brown sauce thickened twice over — once with browned flour for color and flavor, once with raw flour for body. It comes together in under fifteen minutes and yields roughly a cup and a half.
- Browned flour is the pointToast plain flour in a dry skillet over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it is the color of cinnamon — five to eight minutes. It gives the sauce its brown gravy color and nutty taste, but toasting reduces its thickening power, which may be why raw white flour is added later.
- "1/2 cup tomato"This means tomato pulp: canned tomatoes with their juice, or a fresh tomato chopped and crushed. It is not tomato paste or ketchup, either of which would overwhelm the third of a cup of olives.
- Salt and olives togetherA teaspoon of salt plus a third of a cup of brined olives can land aggressively salty. Start with half a teaspoon, then correct after the olives go in and the sauce has stood a minute.
- Slurry the white flour properlyTwo tablespoons of flour stirred smooth in about three tablespoons of cold water, then poured in while the sauce moves. Two minutes of cooking is the minimum to lose the raw-flour taste; three or four is better.
- Strain, then fish out the bay leafThe colander catches the onion and tomato skin and the bay leaf along with them. Discard what stays behind — the sauce should be smooth before the olives are added, so they stay whole and visible.
- Which olivesPlain green olives in brine suit the recipe best. Sliced Spanish or Manzanilla work as written; oil-cured black olives are saltier and stronger and will change the character of the sauce.
- ServingAbout 1 1/2 cups, enough for four. It is a gravy-style sauce for croquettes, nut roasts, rice, or boiled potatoes rather than something to eat with a spoon.