No. 427

Anchovy Sauces

Sauce aux Anchois

Anchovy Fat Sauce.—Set into a saucepan half a pint of brown poivrade sauce (No. 522); the same quantity of espagnole (No. 414), and half a pint of veal blond (No. 423). Allow the liquid to boil up while stirring continuously, then despumate; just when ready to serve incorporate in two ounces of anchovy butter (No. 569).

For Lean Anchovy Sauce.—Clean twelve anchovies, by removing their skin and tails; wash and pound in a mortar; to this pulp add double their quantity of butter, rub through a fine sieve, and incorporate two ounces of this butter into one quart of white sauce (No. 562); season, and add a little lemon juice and nutmeg, then strain the whole through a tammy. The anchovy butter can be replaced by essence of anchovies, already prepared in bottles; in this case incorporate in just when prepared to serve, two ounces of fresh butter.

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For the Modern Kitchen

Two sauces under one heading: a rich meat-stock version and a "lean" white sauce for fish days. Both depend on butter added off the heat at the last moment, which is the hinge of the whole thing.

Never boil after the butter goes inAnchovy butter is whisked in "just when ready to serve" for a reason. Once it boils the emulsion breaks and the anchovy turns harsh and fishy rather than savoury. Pull the pan off the heat, whisk in the cold butter in pieces, and serve at once.
DespumateRanhofer's word for skimming: as the sauce comes to a boil, lift off the scum and fat that gathers at the edges with a ladle. It is what gives a classical brown sauce its clarity and clean flavour.
VolumesHalf a pint is one cup; the lean version's quart is four cups. The brown sauce starts from three half-pints, a pint and a half in all, and finishes at less than that once reduced and despumated, so scale down unless you are cooking for a table.
Veal blondBlond de veau is a pale veal stock, made from unroasted bones so it stays light. A good unsalted veal or light chicken stock stands in; avoid anything darkly roasted or it will fight the espagnole.
Espagnole and poivradeBoth are cross-referenced by number in the original book: espagnole is the flour-thickened brown sauce, poivrade a peppery reduction with vinegar and mirepoix. A modern kitchen would build the same effect from a reduced brown stock with a peppercorn-and-vinegar infusion, thickened lightly.
TammyA tammy is a woollen or worsted straining cloth, wrung between two people to force sauce through. A fine chinois with the back of a ladle, or a doubled square of muslin, does the job.
Salt lastTwelve anchovies pounded into butter carry a great deal of salt, as does bottled anchovy essence. Season only after the butter is in, or the finished sauce will be inedible.
Anchovies to useSalt-packed or oil-packed fillets both work; salt-packed need soaking and drying first. Skinning and de-tailing is only necessary with whole salted fish, not with modern tinned fillets.
ServingThe brown version belongs with grilled or roast meat; the lean white one with poached or fried fish. Keep either warm in a bain-marie below a simmer, never over direct heat.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef of Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as an encyclopaedia of the French repertoire as it was cooked in an American grand restaurant, which is why every sauce here is a number pointing at other numbers. The split between a meat-stock sauce and a "lean" one is older than the book: maigre cookery supplied the Catholic fast days and Lent, when a fish sauce could not be built on veal or beef stock, and professional kitchens kept parallel versions of most sauces for that reason. Anchovy butter and bottled anchovy essence were both staple nineteenth-century larder items, often said to descend from the old fermented fish sauces running from Roman garum through the ketchups and essences of the eighteenth century, though that continuity is more a popular narrative than a documented one; Ranhofer's willingness to substitute the bottled product shows how thoroughly commercial preparations had entered even the most ambitious kitchens by the 1890s.