No. 535

Russian Sauce

Sauce a la Russe

Have two tablespoonfuls of grated horseradish in a saucepan with one pint of veloute (No. 415), a teaspoonful of chopped chives, a coffeespoonful of finely cut tarragon, a tablespoonful of mustard, and one gill of cream; season with salt and pepper, and add one teaspoonful of sugar, the juice of a lemon, and a heavy pinch of finely minced fennel, heat the sauce without boiling.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A velouté enriched with cream and sharpened with horseradish, mustard and three herbs. Everything about it depends on keeping the pan below a simmer once the aromatics go in.

Never let it boilHeat only to steaming, around 170-180F. Boiling drives off the volatile oils in horseradish and mustard, leaving a sauce that is merely sour, and it encourages the cream to break against the lemon juice.
Velouté No. 415Ranhofer's velouté is a white roux moistened with veal or chicken stock and reduced until it coats a spoon. Any good modern velouté works; one pint is two cups, so plan on a sauce for six to eight.
A gillHalf a cup. Use heavy cream, not light, since the acid load here is considerable.
CoffeespoonfulSmaller than a teaspoon, generally taken as about half a teaspoon in nineteenth-century American kitchens.
HorseradishGrated fresh root is what is meant. Bottled prepared horseradish is already in vinegar and much milder, so if you substitute it, drain it and expect to add more than two tablespoons.
The mustardA tablespoon of dry mustard powder and a tablespoon of prepared mustard are very different things, and the recipe does not say which is meant. A smooth prepared mustard is the safer reading; a full tablespoon of powder would overwhelm the sauce.
Lemon lastAdd the juice of the lemon at the end, off direct heat, and taste before committing to all of it; lemons vary considerably in size and acidity.
FennelFennel fronds, minced fine, not the bulb and not fennel seed.
ServingThis is a sauce for boiled or braised beef, poached salmon and other firm white fish, or boiled fowl. It does not hold well; make it as the meat rests.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the Delmonico's kitchen in New York for some three decades, and The Epicurean (1894) is his attempt to set the whole repertoire down in numbered order, sauces cross-referencing sauces. The name is the period's shorthand rather than a claim of origin: through the second half of the nineteenth century French and Franco-American kitchens attached a la russe to almost anything involving horseradish, sour cream or mustard, the flavors Western Europe associated with the Russian table, much as service a la russe came to mean courses brought in sequence from the kitchen. Horseradish with boiled beef is genuinely a Central and Eastern European habit of long standing; what Ranhofer does is fold it into the French mother-sauce system, thickening with velouté and softening with cream so it can be sent out in a sauceboat at a Fifth Avenue dinner.