No. 521

Pimentade Sauce

Sauce Pimentade

Cut up into quarter inch squares a quarter of a pound of lean veal and two ounces of onions, a quarter of a pound of raw, lean ham, then add a small clove of crushed garlic, put all these into a saucepan with some butter and let cook slowly. Fry some sweet Spanish peppers in oil after removing the skins; also some green peppers having both finely chopped, add these to the ham, veal and onions and then add a little good gravy and espagnole sauce (No. 414), also a little tomato puree (No. 730). Boil all together, season properly, skim off the fat and serve.

← No. 520 Pignola Sauce, Italian Style Hot Sauces No. 522 Poivrade Sauce →

For the Modern Kitchen

A meat-based pepper sauce built on the classical brown sauce system — it assumes you already have espagnole and a good meat gravy on hand, which is where most of the work lies.

The hinge: keep the dice small and the cooking slowThe veal, ham and onion are cut to quarter-inch squares and sweated gently in butter without colouring hard. Rushed over high heat the ham turns tough and salty-tasting, and since the garnish is never strained out, texture is the whole point.
"Good gravy" means jus, not pan gravyRanhofer's gravy is unthickened brown veal or beef stock reduced for flavour. Use a strong reduced stock; a flour-thickened American-style gravy will make the sauce pasty on top of the espagnole.
Espagnole (No. 414)A brown roux sauce built on veal stock with mirepoix and tomato, simmered and skimmed for hours. A well-reduced demi-glace from a good butcher or a concentrated homemade brown sauce stands in for it; the recipe specifies only 'a little.'
Sweet Spanish peppersThese are large mild red peppers, closest today to a red bell pepper or a fresh piquillo — not hot. The skins are removed before the peppers go into the oil; charring under a broiler and peeling does that job faster.
"Green peppers"This most likely means unripe sweet bell peppers rather than chilies, though the text does not specify. If you want heat, add it deliberately and in small amount; the sauce is meant to be aromatic rather than fiery.
Skimming mattersButter, ham fat and the fat carried in by the espagnole all rise during the final boil. Skim repeatedly, or ladle the sauce off after resting a few minutes, or it will taste greasy on the plate.
SeasoningHam, espagnole and reduced stock are all salty. Season only at the very end, after the reduction has finished.
Yield and useThe recipe gives no measure for the gravy, espagnole or tomato puree, so the yield is not fixed. It suits grilled or roasted veal, pork chops, chicken and eggs.

A Little History

The name comes from pimienta / piment, the pepper, and the sauce sits in The Epicurean among the hot sauces, immediately before poivrade, as a sweet-pepper preparation rather than a peppercorn one. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York for some thirty years, published the book in 1894 as a complete professional system: nearly every sauce cross-references a mother sauce or purée, which is why this recipe can call for espagnole and tomato purée in a single line and move on. The combination of ham, garlic, onion and sweet pepper belongs to a family of flavours often associated with the Basque country and Béarn, adapted here to a brown-sauce base for an American luxury restaurant.