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Bordelaise Sauce
Ingredients.
Three-quarters of a pint of Espagnole Sauce.
One wine-glass of Claret.
This is a formula rather than a method: the book assumes you already have Espagnole on hand and know what to do with it. The proportions are sound, but everything that makes bordelaise taste of anything happens in the handling.
- The hinge: reduce the wine firstDo not simply stir claret into the Espagnole. Reduce the wine by half to two-thirds on its own before adding the sauce, or the finished result is thin, sharp and smells raw. Once combined, simmer gently and skim.
- Three-quarters of a pintAn Imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so this is 15 fl oz, or a scant 2 US cups (about 425 ml). British cookery books of this period generally mean the Imperial measure.
- A wine-glassIn Victorian and Edwardian usage a wine-glass is reckoned at about 2 fl oz, roughly 1/4 cup or 60 ml. Some households used a larger glass; anything from 2 to 4 fl oz will work here, with the larger amount needing longer reduction.
- ClaretClaret is the British term for red Bordeaux. Any dry, moderately tannic red will do, but avoid anything oaky or jammy, which turns bitter and sweet respectively once reduced.
- EspagnoleThe brown mother sauce: brown roux, brown stock and mirepoix, simmered and skimmed for hours. If you are not making it, substitute a well-reduced brown veal stock thickened lightly with arrowroot rather than a commercial gravy base, which will be too salty once reduced further.
- What the book leaves outThe classic version reduces the wine with chopped shallot, crushed peppercorns, thyme and bay, then strains. Finishing off the heat with a knob of cold butter gives the gloss expected of a sauce at this level.
- Marrow, if you want the full versionBordelaise as served with grilled beef traditionally carries dice of beef marrow poached separately in salted water for a couple of minutes and added at the last moment. Added early, it melts away entirely.
- YieldRather under 2 cups after reduction, enough to sauce six to eight portions of grilled or roast beef.
Bordelaise simply means "in the manner of Bordeaux," and here the name signals a wine rather than a place of origin for the dish itself: red Bordeaux, known in Britain for centuries as claret, from the long English trade in Gascon wine. The sauce belongs to the codified system of mother sauces and their derivatives that was set down through the nineteenth century and fixed in print by Escoffier's generation, in which a kitchen keeps a large pot of Espagnole going and turns out a dozen named sauces from it by additions of wine, herbs and garnish. That is why the entry here is so brief. It was written for cooks working within that system, and it assumes the Espagnole is already simmering at the back of the stove. The marrow garnish usually associated with the name is often traced to the beef of the Bordeaux region grilled over vine cuttings, though the pairing is traditional rather than documented to any one kitchen.