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Polish Sauce
Peel and cut some turnips into small balls or olives, and boil them till tender in salted water with the addition of a little sugar. Put one tablespoonful each of butter and flour into a saucepan, and stir it over the fire till well-mixed but not browned; then pour in one pint of liquor in which some fish has been boiled, and boil it quickly over the fire till somewhat reduced. Boil a pint of cream, stirring it constantly while boiling, and mix it with the sauce; drain the turnips, add them, and season to taste. Serve the sauce while hot.
A fish-stock velouté finished with cream and glazed turnips — essentially a white roux sauce built on court-bouillon. The whole thing hinges on reduction: a pint of fish liquor plus a pint of cream is a lot of liquid for one tablespoon each of butter and flour, so the body comes from boiling it down, not from the roux.
- "Olives"This means turnip pieces trimmed to a small oval, the shape now called tourné. A melon baller gives the same effect in a fraction of the time; pieces should be roughly 3/4 inch so they cook evenly.
- TurnipsUse white or purple-top turnips, not swede/rutabaga, which is sweeter and stains the sauce yellow. Ten to twelve minutes in salted water with a pinch of sugar is enough — they should hold their shape when added to the finished sauce.
- "Liquor in which some fish has been boiled"A busy period kitchen would often have this on hand from poaching whole fish. Substitute a light fish stock or a court-bouillon; avoid concentrated commercial fish base, which will be aggressively salty once the pint is reduced.
- The rouxCook the butter and flour two to three minutes over moderate heat to lose the raw-flour taste, but keep it blond.
- Boiling the cream separatelyStir constantly and use a wide pan; cream scorches fast and boils over faster. Heavy cream is the right choice; anything lighter may break.
- Reduction and consistencyThe recipe reduces the fish liquor before the boiled cream goes in; further cooking down may be needed before the sauce coats a spoon. Hurry it and you get a thin, milky sauce.
- SeasoningSalt last, after reduction, or the sauce will finish oversalted. A squeeze of lemon and white pepper are in keeping with the style; ground nutmeg was common in cream sauces of this period.
- Yield and servingAbout three cups — enough for six to eight portions. It is a sauce for poached or boiled white fish, and it will not hold well: the turnips soften and the cream separates on standing, so make it close to service.
Nineteenth-century professional kitchens named sauces by nationality with a fairly loose hand, and "Polish" (polonaise) was applied to more than one preparation — most familiarly the browned butter and crumbs poured over asparagus or cauliflower, but also, as here, dishes built on root vegetables and soured or enriched cream. Turnips cut to shape and glazed were a standard garnish in the classical repertoire. Oscar Tschirky was the Waldorf's maître d'hôtel from 1893 and compiled this book in 1896 from working kitchen practice; the recipes assume, as this one does, that stocks and cooking liquors are simply there for the taking, which may suggest that these are brigade instructions rather than domestic ones.