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Sardines à la Pietmontaise
Fry some bread in boiling fat, and having taken the scales off some sardines, making them hot in the oven, put them on the fried bread, and pour over them the following sauce, made with- Yolks of four Eggs, well whipped.
Half an ounce of Butter.
One teaspoonful of Tarragon Vinegar.
One teaspoonful of Malt Vinegar.
A little made Mustard.
Salt. Stir these well together over the fire till the sauce thickens; it must not boil.
A late-Victorian savoury: hot sardines on fried croûtes under a mustard-sharpened egg sauce. The sauce is the whole dish, and it is an unstable emulsion, so read that part first.
- The hinge: never let the sauce boilFour yolks with only half an ounce of butter and two teaspoons of vinegar is a very lean custard, and it will scramble the moment it passes about 180F. Work in a bowl over barely simmering water, stir constantly, and pull it off the heat when it coats the spoon — around 160-170F.
- Butter and thinningHalf an ounce is one tablespoon. If the sauce tightens or begins to look grainy, take it off the heat and beat in a teaspoon of cold water or a little more butter to bring it back.
- "Made mustard"Prepared mustard from the jar, English style — mustard flour slaked with water, hot and sharp. Start with half a teaspoon; modern English mustard is fierce, and this quantity of sauce is small.
- Malt vinegarStill sold, and worth using rather than substituting: it is browner and rounder than white wine vinegar and it is what gives the sauce its faintly ale-like edge alongside the tarragon.
- Which sardines"Taking the scales off" points to whole fish, either fresh or salt-packed, which were sold barrelled in brine and needed scraping and rinsing. Tinned sardines in oil need only draining and patting dry; fresh ones should be gutted and can be grilled rather than merely warmed.
- Heating the fishThe recipe gives no temperature, only "hot in the oven"; a moderate oven for a few minutes is enough to warm tinned or cooked sardines through. Any longer and they dry out and break up when lifted onto the croûte.
- The fried breadCrustless slices about a third of an inch thick, cut to the length of the fish, fried in clarified butter or clean deep fat at 350-360F until golden, then drained on paper. Fry them last so they are still crisp when the sauce goes over.
- Yield and serviceProbably enough sauce for six to eight croûtes, though the recipe gives no yield. Savouries were served hot in single small portions after the sweet, so one or two croûtes a head; assemble at the last moment and send them out immediately.
The savoury course — a small, hot, salty mouthful served after the sweet and before dessert — was a fixture of British dinner service from the 1870s until the Second World War, and sardines on toast in various guises was one of its workhorses. Tinned sardines from Nantes and later from Portugal and Norway had made the fish a reliable pantry staple by the 1880s, cheap enough for the kitchen and smart enough for the dining room. The name here is a loose one: à la piémontaise normally signals Piedmont and its rice or truffles, and this mustard-and-vinegar egg sauce has little to do with either, but Victorian and Edwardian cookery books applied French regional tags freely as a badge of professional polish. The sauce itself belongs to the family of egg-yolk liaisons thickened over gentle heat that runs from hollandaise to sauce bâtarde, here made assertive with mustard and two vinegars to stand up against the oily fish.