No. 497

Mariniere Sauce

Sauce Mariniere

Have two ounces of onions cut into small three-sixteenth inch squares; fry them colorless in two ounces of butter, then moisten them with a gill of white wine, adding one tablespoonful of brandy, two ounces of finely chopped mushrooms, one pint of veloute (No. 415), two gills of veal blond (No. 423) or fish stock (No. 195) (if for lean), salt, pepper, nutmeg, one clove of garlic, one bay leaf, and as much thyme. Let cook, despumate for half an hour, skim well the surface, and add another gill of white wine, then strain the sauce through a tammy (No. 159), and just when ready to serve, throw in a teaspoonful of chopped parsley.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A classic French compound sauce built on velouté, thinned with stock and wine and simmered until it clarifies itself. Nothing here is difficult, but several of Ranhofer's terms and vessels need translating.

GillA gill is half a cup (4 fl oz). The recipe uses a gill of white wine at the start, two gills (1 cup) of veal blond or fish stock, and another gill of wine at the end.
DespumateHold the sauce at a bare simmer, off-centre on the burner if possible, so the fat and scum collect on the cool side of the pan and can be lifted off with a ladle. A hard boil works the impurities back through the sauce instead of driving them to the surface, which is what the half-hour of despumation is meant to prevent; the recipe adds 'skim well the surface' for the same reason.
Velouté (No. 415)A white roux moistened with white stock — veal for meat service, fish for lean — cooked out and skimmed, made with roughly equal weights of butter and flour. Without it this recipe has no body at all.
Veal blond (No. 423)Ranhofer's *blond de veau*: veal stock reduced to a light amber, unthickened. A good unsalted veal or light chicken stock, reduced by about half, is the practical substitute.
"If for lean"*Maigre* — the fast-day version, served on Fridays and in Lent. The recipe substitutes fish stock for the veal blond, which makes the sauce suitable for the fish dishes it usually accompanied.
Garlic, bay, thymeThe clove of garlic goes in whole; "as much thyme" means about as much as the bay leaf, so a sprig. All of it is caught by the straining and none of it should be pounded in.
Tammy (No. 159)A tammy cloth is a fine worsted straining cloth, wrung between two people to force the sauce through. A fine chinois lined with a doubled square of muslin does the same work; press with a ladle rather than twisting.
The second wineThe recipe adds the last gill after the half hour of despumation and immediately before straining, so it is barely cooked; treat it as a finishing addition rather than something to reduce.
YieldAbout a pint and a half after skimming and straining — enough to sauce fish or poultry for six to eight.

A Little History

*Marinière* means, plainly, "in the sailor's manner," the same word that gives us *moules marinière*, and in nineteenth-century French kitchens it signalled a white wine sauce meant for fish and shellfish — here given a mushroom and onion base and a spoonful of brandy for depth. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York for much of the second half of the nineteenth century, published *The Epicurean* in 1894 as a complete system rather than a collection: this sauce is No. 497 in a chain of cross-references, useless without the velouté at No. 415 and the stocks at Nos. 423 and 195, which is much how the classical *cuisine* of Carême and Gouffé was organised. The instruction to make the sauce either *gras* or *maigre* by swapping veal stock for fish reflects the persistence of fast-day cooking; the same duplication recurs elsewhere in the sauce chapter.