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Olive Sauce
2 dozen olives 2 tablespoons salad oil 1 slice onion 1 lemon 2 tablespoons flour 1 pint stock Salt and pepper Place the olives in an earthenware bowl, cover with hot water and let them remain for half an hour to draw out the brine. Place the oil in a frying-pan, and add the onion; when this commences to color, add the flour. Stir until smooth. After it has cooked for two minutes, add the stock, and place where it will simmer gently. Pare the olives round and round as though paring an apple, leaving the pulp in a single strip. If this is done carefully, the olives will retain their shape. Place the olives in the sauce, add the seasoning, the juice of the lemon and simmer for twenty minutes. Skim carefully and serve.
A brown-sauce base built on a roux of oil and flour rather than butter, with olives pared into ribbons. Nothing here is unsafe; the only real skill is the paring.
- Olives to useBrine-cured olives (the recipe has you soak out the brine), and they need to be unpitted — the pit is what the flesh spirals off. Large olives are easiest to pare; small pitted salad olives are unsuitable.
- The paringCut around the olive with a small sharp paring knife, turning it as you go so the flesh comes away in one continuous strip that stays wrapped round the pit; done carefully, the olive keeps its shape. Slice a few into rings instead if you would rather not fuss.
- Soaking is not optionalThe half-hour soak in hot water is there to draw out brine so the sauce is not oversalted. The recipe seasons when the olives go into the sauce; taste before you add salt, since the olives will give up more salt during the simmer.
- Salad oilPeriod shorthand for a neutral oil, usually cottonseed or olive. Any mild vegetable oil serves; olive oil suits the dish.
- A pint of stockTwo cups (US pint). Brown veal or beef stock for meat and game, a light fish or chicken stock if the sauce is going to fish. Unsalted stock, given the olives.
- Cook the roux properlyThe recipe gives two minutes of cooking after the flour goes in; let it go a shade darker for a browner sauce. Adding the stock gradually and whisking helps keep it smooth.
- LemonA whole lemon's juice into two cups of sauce is assertive. Add half, taste, then decide, since lemons vary widely in size.
- YieldAbout two cups of sauce. Best served soon after making, while the pared olives still hold their shape.
Olive sauce belongs to the family of brown sauces that dressed roast duck, mutton and game birds — the pairing of duck with olives is long established in French cooking. Spiral-pared or turned olives are a professional garnishing conceit, the point being that the olive keeps its shape in the sauce. Bottled green olives in brine were widely available in American groceries by the early twentieth century, with both Spanish imports and Californian production behind that, which is why a book of this date can call for two dozen without comment.