No. 455

Currant Sauce, with Red Wine, Port Wine, California Wine, White Wine and White Currants

Sauce Groseilles au vin de Bordeaux, au vin de Porto, au vin de Californie, au vin Blanc et aux Groseilles Blanches

Plain currant jelly without being heated may be served with canvasback duck and saddle of venison. But if some people prefer sauce, the following will be found good:

Currant Sauce with Red Bordeaux Wine.—Put half a bottle of Bordeaux wine into a saucepan on the fire, and when the wine begins to simmer take it off, and put into it, to infuse, ten cloves, the peel of a lemon and a bit of cinnamon; leave them in for twenty minutes, and then add to it half a pound of currant jelly and two ounces of sugar, more or less, according to taste; dissolve and mix well, and when thoroughly melted, strain the sauce through a sieve and serve it hot.

Currant Sauce with Port Wine.—Put half a pound of currant jelly in a saucepan on the fire, dilute it with half a bottleful of port wine and one pint of brown espagnole sauce (No. 414), and when well dissolved strain through a sieve and serve hot.

Currant Sauce with California Wine.—Melt half a pound of currant jelly with half a pint of red California wine, and when well dissolved strain it through a tammy and serve hot.

Currant Sauce with White Wine.—Made with half a pound of currant jelly, a pinch of cinnamon, the same of ground cloves, half a bottle of white wine, and a pint of veloute (No. 415), besides the pulp of one lemon; strain through a sieve and serve hot.

White Currant Sauce.—Blanch and strain a pint of picked white currants, mix in with them half a pound of apple with orange jelly, the juice of two lemons and half a pint of veloute (No. 415). Dissolve with half a pint of white wine; strain through a tammy and serve hot.

← No. 454 Cream Sauce Hot Sauces No. 456 Curry Sauces, Indian and with Apples →

For the Modern Kitchen

Five variations on one idea: currant jelly loosened with wine and, in three cases, bound with a classic mother sauce. The instructions assume a professional kitchen with espagnole and velouté already on the stove.

Half a bottle of wineRanhofer's bottle is close to a modern 750 ml, so half is about 1 1/2 cups (12 fl oz). Half a pound of currant jelly is roughly 3/4 cup.
Espagnole and veloutéNos. 414 and 415 are the long-simmered brown and blond mother sauces of the period. If you are not making them, a well-reduced brown veal or game stock thickened lightly will stand in for the espagnole, and a chicken-stock velouté (roux plus stock, simmered until it coats) for the other.
The infusion, not a boilFor the Bordeaux version the wine comes off the heat before the spices go in. Ten cloves and a piece of cinnamon steeping twenty minutes in hot wine give perfume; boiling them in it gives a medicinal, tannic edge that the jelly will not cover.
A tammyA tammy is a felted woolen straining cloth, wrung between two people. A fine chinois, or a fine sieve lined with damp muslin, does the same work.
Ten cloves is a lotFor 1 1/2 cups of wine this is an assertive amount, calibrated to venison and wild duck. Taste at ten minutes and pull the spices early if the sauce is going with something milder.
Sugar to tasteThe recipe itself says "more or less, according to taste." Start with half the two ounces, or none at all, and add only after the jelly has melted and you have tasted.
White currantsEffectively unavailable in most markets; look to farmers' markets in midsummer or substitute red currants and accept the color. "Apple with orange jelly" appears to mean an apple jelly flavored with orange; a good-quality apple jelly with grated orange zest is the nearest thing.
Yield and serviceYields differ: the California version makes under 2 cups, while the port and white-wine versions, with a pint of mother sauce added, come out closer to a quart. Serve hot in a sauceboat alongside, not poured over the meat.
CanvasbackThe duck named in the headnote is a wild migratory species and cannot be bought; it is subject to hunting regulation. Any of these sauces suits venison, farmed duck breast or roast goose.

A Little History

This is entry No. 455 in Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium written after some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York. Currant jelly with game is older than the book by centuries — the sharp-sweet fruit accompaniment to venison and wildfowl runs back through English and French cookery, and Ranhofer's first line, that plain unheated jelly is perfectly proper with canvasback duck or saddle of venison, is the traditional service. What makes the entry period-specific is the third variation. A sauce built on "vin de Californie" appearing in a Delmonico's book of the 1890s at least suggests that California reds had become respectable enough for a French chef in New York to name them alongside Bordeaux and port, a generation after the state's commercial vineyards took hold.