No. 416
Veloute and Brown, Espagnole or Spanish Sauce for Lean
Sauce Veloutee et Espagnole en Maigre
Ranhofer writes this as a footnote to the two preceding sauces rather than a standalone method, so it only makes sense read alongside Nos. 414, 415 and 417. The substance of it is a single substitution: fish stock, or a stock made without meat, in place of veal.
- "En maigre" means leanA maigre preparation is one for fast days, made without meat or meat stock. Here that means the sauce is built on fish stock (No. 417) or another stock made without meat; Ranhofer does not say in this entry what fat the roux is made with.
- The one thing that mattersFor the lean velouté, the stock is reduced to a glaze without coloring. Keep the heat moderate and stop while the reduction is still pale and syrupy; once it takes on brown it is no longer a velouté and belongs with the espagnole.
- Roux colour is the dividerVelouté uses a white or blond roux, cooked only until it smells of toasted flour. Espagnole uses a brown roux, cooked to the colour of a hazelnut shell. Brown roux thickens noticeably less per weight of flour, so a brown sauce needs more of it to reach the same body.
- Fish stock is not veal stockFish bones give up their gelatin and flavour quickly; a fumet is usually taken off after 20 to 30 minutes, and prolonged boiling is generally held to make it bitter. Do not simmer it for hours as you would a veal stock, and do not expect it to reduce to the same firm, rubbery glaze.
- SkimmingRanhofer's stocks and sauces generally depend on long, slow simmering with repeated skimming of the scum and fat. Setting the pot slightly off the burner drives the scum to the cooler side of the pan, where the classical kitchen expected you to lift it off. No. 416 itself gives no skimming direction.
- Yield and keepingNo quantity is given because these are working stores, not a dish. Fish-based sauces are far more perishable than veal-based ones: refrigerate within two hours, use within two days, or freeze in small portions.
- Where it gets usedLean velouté becomes the base for the white fish sauces later in the book — Normande, vin blanc, and the like. Lean espagnole underpins the brown fish and matelote sauces. Neither is meant to be served as it stands.
Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete codification of the French kitchen as it was then practised in America, and the maigre sauces are a survival of the Catholic fasting calendar inside a secular restaurant manual. Lenten and Friday abstinence from meat created a permanent commercial demand for a full parallel repertoire — every sauce, soup and forcemeat needed a version with no flesh in it — and French kitchens answered by building the same architecture on fish stock. The distinction between gras and maigre runs through French cookbooks from at least the seventeenth century. Ranhofer's terseness here is telling: he assumes a reader who has already worked through Nos. 414 and 415 and needs only to be told what to change.