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Sauces and Garnishes
SAUCES.
THE following are the principal sauces and garnishes which are used in cookery. Many of them have been mentioned in the course of these pages, and as the names frequently convey no idea of their ingredients, a slight description of them is given.
The two chief sauces are Velouté-white, and Espagnole-brown. Many other sauces are made from these.
Allemande is a thicker form of velouté sauce.
Anchois (Anchovy) - melted-butter sauce with anchovy, etc.
Aubois-a sweet sauce of syrup and yolks of eggs with whipped cream.
Aurore-Allemande and tomato sauce, with Chili vinegar, etc.
Béarnaise-yolks of eggs, butter, French vinegar, chopped parsley, etc.
Béchamel-Velouté sauce with cream. For a maigre sauce it is made without stock.
Beurre-melted-butter sauce.
Beurre noir-black-butter sauce of browned butter and vinegar. This sauce is usually served with skate or grilled mackerel.
Bigarade is made of oranges with brown sauce.
Blonde-melted-butter sauce made with stock with stock instead of water.
Bordelaise-brown sauce with wine, chopped parsley, etc.
Bourgeoise-stock with French mustard, tarragon, etc.
Bourguignotte-brown sauce with wine, onions, mushrooms and truffles.
Bretonne-brown sauce with onions, etc.
Câpres (Caper)-brown or white sauce, with capers.
Caramel-burnt sugar. It is sometimes made of made of burnt brandy and sugar.
Cardinal-white sauce coloured with lobster or crayfish butter.
Cazanova-Mayonnaise sauce with yolks of hardboiled eggs, shred whites of eggs and truffles.
Champignons (Mushroom) -brown or white sauce with purée of mushrooms.
Châteaubriand-brown sauce with Maître d'hôtel sauce.
Chevreuil-Poivrade sauce with wine, Harvey, red currant jelly, etc.
Cornichons (Gherkin)-brown sauce with vinegar, and pickled gherkins cut in slices.
Court-bouillon-wine, or vinegar and water, butter, vegetables, etc. This sauce is only used in cooking.
Crème-melted-butter sauce with yolks of eggs and cream.
Crevettes (Shrimp) - Cardinal sauce with anchovy and shrimps.
Czarina-brown sauce with sultana raisins, gherkins, etc. Diable (Devil sauce)-brown gravy with Oude and Harvey sauce, vinegar, etc.
Diplomate-Béchamel sauce with crayfish or lobster butter.
Duchesse-white sauce with chopped mushrooms and tongue.
A glossary, included because, as the author says at the top of it, the names frequently convey no idea of their ingredients. It is the most useful page in the book and the one where the vocabulary has shifted most.
- Two mother sauces, not fiveThe page names Velouté for white and Espagnole for brown as the two chief sauces from which many of the others are made. The later teaching most cooks have met lists five mothers and puts béchamel among them. Here béchamel is a derivative: velouté with cream added.
- Béchamel has changed meaningRead the entry closely. Béchamel is velouté with cream, which makes it a stock-based white sauce enriched, and for a maigre version it is made without the stock. A modern béchamel is milk thickened with a flour and butter roux and contains no stock at all. Swap one for the other and every dish on these pages that calls for it changes.
- Melted butter is a sauceBeurre is given as melted-butter sauce, and Blonde as the same thing made with stock instead of water. English melted butter of this period was thickened, closer to a thin white sauce than to anything poured out of a pan, and several sauces here — anchovy, caper, crème, crevettes — are built on it.
- Bottled sauces as ingredientsDiable calls for Oude and Harvey sauce, Chevreuil for Harvey. These were proprietary bottled condiments, bought rather than made, and they are no longer on the shelf. Worcestershire sauce is the one from that family still sold.
- Maigre means a fast dayThe note that béchamel can be made maigre, without stock, is a small piece of evidence about how the kitchen ran. There were days when no meat stock could appear in a sauce, and the repertoire kept a version of itself ready for them.
- Flavoured vinegars did real workChili vinegar in Aurore, French vinegar in Béarnaise, tarragon vinegar elsewhere, plain vinegar with browned butter for beurre noir. The acid was chosen as deliberately as the stock. A kitchen with one bottle of vinegar in it loses a distinction the page depends on throughout.
The glossary exists because the system had outgrown the people using it. Once a book has to explain that Cazanova is mayonnaise with hard-boiled yolk, shredded white and truffle, the name has stopped carrying information and become a label. Look at where the names come from — regions, towns, titles, a sauce for roebuck, a sauce for the devil, a sauce for a Russian — and the common thread is that none of them describes the food. The author’s solution is not to abolish them but to hand the reader a dictionary, which is a fair description of the whole book.