No. 426

American Sauce

Sauce Americaine

Split open the bodies of two cooked lobsters, take out all the creamy parts, rub them through a sieve, and keep them aside for further use. Wipe well the shells, break them into pieces and chop them up coarsely on the table with the thick end of a knife. Fry in some oil, carrots, celery, parsley, shallots, and minced onions, add to these the chopped shells and let cook all together until their moisture is reduced, then moisten slightly above their height with white wine and mirepoix (No. 419); let this liquid boil up for two minutes, then move it on a more moderate fire, and add some thyme, bay leaf, and basil. Let the whole cook from twenty to twenty-five minutes, then strain it forcibly through a sieve into a bowl, and leave it to settle for a quarter of an hour, afterward removing all the fat, pour off the top gently into a sautoire, pressing it through a fine sieve, and let it reduce to a half-glaze. Mix in with it about a third of its quantity of tomato sauce, reduce it once more without ceasing to stir until it becomes short and succulent, by mixing in three or four spoonfuls of sherry wine. Strain it now into another saucepan, work in the butte, and finish with a dash of cayenne pepper, and two spoonfuls of the creamy part from the bodies already strained. This sauce should be served as quickly as it is made; in any way it must be kept stirred until the very last moment.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A classic shellfish sauce built on lobster shells and the creamy tomalley, thickened only by reduction. Everything hinges on the finish: once the butter goes in, the sauce must not boil again.

"Work in the butte"A typesetting slip for butter. Whisk the butter into the reduced sauce off direct heat, in small pieces, and hold it below a simmer; the tomalley and the butter can split if the sauce boils. Ranhofer's own instruction is that the sauce be served as quickly as it is made and kept stirred until the very last moment.
The creamy partsThe green tomalley (liver-pancreas) and, in a hen lobster, the coral. Sieved and stirred in at the end, it both thickens and flavors. Note that public health agencies now advise against eating tomalley regularly, since it can concentrate contaminants and, in some waters, marine biotoxins; two spoonfuls divided among several servings is a small dose, but readers who avoid it can finish with butter alone.
Mirepoix, No. 419In The Epicurean this is not raw diced vegetables but a cooked aromatic preparation — vegetables with lean ham or bacon, sweated in butter and moistened with wine or stock. If you do not have it, use a well-flavored light stock; the fried carrot, celery, shallot and onion in this recipe already supply the vegetable base.
Two lobstersThe recipe gives no size; two cooked lobsters of ordinary market size supply the shells. Ranhofer assumes the meat is already destined for the dish the sauce accompanies — this is a sauce for lobster or other shellfish, built from the parts that would otherwise be discarded.
Sautoire and half-glazeA sautoire is a straight-sided sauté pan; the wide surface speeds reduction. "Half-glaze" here means reduced until it coats a spoon and is glossy but still pourable, not the stiff glace de viande stage.
Breaking the shellsThe recipe says to break them into pieces and chop them coarsely; a heavy knife does it, or a few pulses in a food processor. Surface area is what extracts color and flavor, and the fragments strain out at the end.
Straining"Strain it forcibly" means pressing hard through a chinois or fine sieve to push through the shell-flavored oil and vegetable pulp. The quarter-hour rest afterward lets the fat rise so it can be skimmed; skip it and the sauce will be greasy rather than clean.
YieldThe recipe gives no quantities. It does not hold or reheat — plan the timing so it is finished as the fish goes to the table.

A Little History

Sauce américaine belongs to the wave of lobster cookery that came out of French restaurant kitchens in the second half of the nineteenth century, and its name has been argued over ever since — the usual story, traditional rather than documented, credits a Paris chef who had worked in the United States and improvised the dish for late diners, while others insist the original was armoricaine, after Armorica, the old name for Brittany. Charles Ranhofer, who ran the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894, had no reason to doubt the American spelling. What is more telling than the etymology is the method: tomato, oil, cayenne and sherry are Mediterranean and Iberian notes, not northern French ones. The technique of building a sauce from crushed shells rather than meat is thrifty in origin and survives in the modern shellfish bisque and lobster stock.