Poulette Sauce
in its best form, is no other than Allemande or Almayne sauce. Most commonly it is a mock Almayne made as follows. Stir on the fire for a quarter of an hour three ounces of butter, three of flour, and nearly a pint of white broth, which in the case of fowls will be the broth in which they have boiled. Then add a leason of two or three yolks of eggs, and finish with lemon-juice. Mushrooms, shalots and parsley are added to form what is called the Poulette Ragout or Relish.
It has already been explained that the Almayne, or Allemande, is an attempt to improve upon the Dutch sauce; and since Poulette is now described as a mock Almayne, it may likewise be described as a parody of the Dutch. It is a Dutch sauce with a little less of eggs and a good deal less of butter; but with flour in it (which the Dutchman never uses), and with white broth instead of water.
Poulette means a hen chicken, and the Poulette sauce is but the enrichment with eggs of the white parsley-andbutter sauce so well known in England as the clothing of boiled chicken. It is sometimes in English books named lemon sauce, because finished with lemon-juice.
Prawn
A velouté enriched with egg yolks and sharpened with lemon — Kettner gives proportions but assumes you already know how to handle a liaison. Two things decide whether it works: the temperature when the yolks go in, and how thin you make the base.
- The hinge: never boil after the yolksThe hinge: don't boil after the yolks -- Beat the yolks with a ladleful of the hot sauce, return the mixture off the heat, then bring it back only to a bare steam. The flour in the base gives some protection, but hard boiling risks the yolks setting into threads.
- "Leason"An old spelling of liaison, the egg-yolk (sometimes yolk-and-cream) thickening used to finish a white sauce. Nothing to do with the flour already in it.
- Proportions and the pintThree ounces each of butter and flour is a heavy roux; the "nearly a pint" is an imperial pint of about 20 fl oz. That gives a thick coating sauce. For a pouring sauce, slacken with more broth — velouté for a liaison should be loose, since the yolks thicken it further.
- A quarter of an hour on the fireThat fifteen minutes is not wasted time. It cooks the raw starch out of the flour and lets the sauce reduce; keep the heat low so the roux stays blond rather than colouring.
- White brothA pale, unroasted stock. Kettner's suggestion of the chicken's own poaching liquor is the best version — reduce it if it tastes thin, since the sauce carries little other seasoning.
- The ragout garnishSweat the sliced mushrooms and finely chopped shallot in butter first and add them to the finished sauce; raw shallot in a delicate white sauce is harsh. Parsley goes in last, off the heat, so it stays green.
- Lemon at the endAdd the juice after the yolks and off the heat. Acid added to hot dairy and egg early on encourages curdling, and the brightness fades if it cooks.
- YieldAbout a pint of finished sauce — enough for a boiled fowl serving four to six, or for veal, poached eggs or blanched vegetables.
Kettner's is arranging the white sauces into a family tree, and Poulette sits at the bottom of it: hollandaise (his "Dutch") enriched with yolks and butter, allemande the flour-thickened improvement on it, and poulette the everyday version made with the broth already in the pot. The name, as the book says, means a hen chicken, and the sauce's usual companion is boiled fowl — though in this recipe the fowl's own broth is itself an ingredient; the same logic gives us sauce poulette served over tripe and mushrooms in French cooking, where the chicken has vanished entirely. The book's aside that English cookery knows it as "lemon sauce" follows its own statement that parsley-and-butter was the familiar English clothing of boiled chicken. The dismissal of allemande as "Almayne" and of the Dutchman who never uses flour is Kettner's habitual tone: the book, published in London in 1877 and generally credited to E. S. Dallas writing under the restaurateur's name, is as much culinary argument as instruction.