No. 541

Shrimp and Crab Sauce

Sauce aux Crevettes et aux Crabes

Pour into a flat saucepan about one pint of bechamel sauce (No. 409), let it reduce, and incorporate into it six tablespoonfuls of mushroom essence (No. 392) and the same quantity of raw cream. When the sauce is very creamy, take it off the fire, and whisk into it gradually with a wire whip three ounces of fresh butter, and at the very last moment two ounces of shrimp butter (No. 586). Season and serve it in a separate sauce-boat with the shrimp tails, cut up into small pieces if they are large, but if small, leave them whole. Add the same quantity of crab meat cut the same size.

← No. 540 Shrimp Sauce, Shrimp and Cream Sauce Hot Sauces No. 542 Sicilian Sauce →

For the Modern Kitchen

A classic French compound butter sauce built on béchamel, written in Ranhofer's cross-referenced shorthand. The whole thing hinges on the butter going in off the heat.

The hinge: mount the butter off the fireOnce the three ounces of butter and the shrimp butter are whisked in, the sauce must not return to a simmer or the emulsion breaks and the shellfish butter turns greasy and separates. Hold it warm, no hotter than about 150F, and whisk it smooth again just before serving.
TablespoonfulsSix tablespoonfuls is three fluid ounces, about three-eighths of a cup. So the pint of reduced bechamel takes a little under half a cup each of mushroom essence and cream -- the sauce is meant to slacken again after reducing.
"Flat saucepan"A wide, shallow pan -- a modern sauteuse or straight-sided skillet. The point is surface area for a fast reduction; a tall narrow pot will be slower and runs more risk of scorching the milk solids.
Mushroom essence (No. 392)Presumably a reduction of mushroom trimmings and their cooking liquor to a concentrated stock; the numbered recipe is not given here. Simmering a half pound of chopped mushrooms in a cup of water with a squeeze of lemon and reducing hard gives a rough equivalent. Not mushroom ketchup, which is salted and vinegared.
"Raw cream"This means cream that has not been cooked, not cream that is unpasteurized -- heavy cream straight from the carton will do.
Shrimp butter (No. 586)Typically shrimp shells and heads pounded with butter, gently melted, then strained and chilled. Much of the colour and a good deal of the flavour come from it, so it is worth making from the shells of the shrimp you are garnishing with rather than skipping.
The shrimp and crab go in wholeThe shrimp and crab -- Cut the tails into small pieces if they are large, leave them whole if small, and cut the crab meat to match. They go in at the end, warmed only by the sauce; already-cooked shrimp and picked crab need no further cooking and will toughen if held over heat.
YieldRoughly a pint and a quarter to a pint and a half of finished sauce with the garnish. The recipe specifies only that it be sent to table in a separate sauce-boat; warm the boat, since a cold one will chill the emulsion.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous record of his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it shows how that kitchen worked: nothing is made from scratch on the spot, everything is assembled from numbered components already standing ready — béchamel from No. 409, mushroom essence from No. 392, shrimp butter from No. 586. The technique of finishing a sauce with a pounded shellfish butter is older than the book: beurre de crevettes and its cousins made from lobster or crayfish shells were long the standard way of getting shellfish flavour and a rose colour into a white sauce without curdling it.