No. 542

Sicilian Sauce

Sauce Sicilienne

Pour two gills of Marsala wine into a saucepan, adding to it one ounce of truffles and two ounces of mushrooms, both chopped; also two shallots, chopped, blanched and lightly fried in an ounce of butter; and also one teaspoonful of chopped parsley, a clove of crushed and chopped garlic, a bunch of parsley garnished with a bay leaf, and the same of thyme, pepper and some grated nutmeg. Let all these simmer and reduce on a slow fire, then remove the parsley, and add four gills of allemande (No. 407), and two of game (No. 389), or chicken essence (No. 387), the juice of half a lemon, the same quantity of orange, besides the peel of the latter finely cut up and blanched, and a coffeespoonful of powdered sugar.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A compound sauce from Ranhofer's kitchen, built on two of the book's own preparations, so the work is mostly in what it points to rather than what it lists. Read the cross-references before starting.

Gills, translatedA gill is half a cup. Two gills of Marsala is 1 cup, four gills of allemande is 2 cups, and two gills of essence is 1 cup, giving roughly three cups of finished sauce once the Marsala has reduced. The recipe states no yield or number of portions.
The two mother preparationsAllemande (No. 407) is a velouté finished with egg yolks and cream; game or chicken essence (No. 387/389) is a strong, reduced stock, not a broth. Without a properly reduced essence the sauce tastes thin and winy, and there is no substitute for it in a can.
The hinge: no boiling after the allemande goes inAn egg-yolk liaison sets and curdles above roughly 180F. Reduce the Marsala and aromatics hard, then drop the heat before the allemande joins them, and keep the finished sauce at a bare tremble.
CoffeespoonfulAn old measure usually reckoned at about half a teaspoon. Start at half; the sugar is there to round the citrus, not to sweeten.
Bunch of parsley garnished with bay and thymeThis is a bouquet garni, tied so it can be lifted out whole. The instruction to remove the parsley means the whole bundle, not the teaspoon of chopped parsley added separately.
Truffles and mushroomsAn ounce of fresh black truffle is a serious expense now; a jarred truffle in its own juice, with the juice added to the reduction, is the honest substitute. Truffle oil is not. The two ounces of mushrooms are ordinary cultivated ones, chopped fine.
Blanched orange peelBlanching the finely cut zest in boiling water for a minute or two takes the bitterness off the white pith side. Ranhofer calls for it, and skipping it risks a bitter edge.
ShallotsThe recipe has them blanched before frying, which softens their raw bite. Fry them gently in the butter without colour; browning pushes the sauce toward a different, coarser flavour.
ServingThe game or chicken essence points to game birds and roast poultry. Strain it or leave the garnish in as you prefer; the recipe does not say.

A Little History

The recipe comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous compendium he assembled from more than thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York. Sauces labelled a la sicilienne in nineteenth-century French kitchens are often said to have signalled Marsala and orange, though the pattern is more inference than documented nomenclature; Marsala had been shipped commercially to Britain and beyond since the late eighteenth century and by Ranhofer's day was a standard sweet fortified wine on the professional shelf. The structure here is pure classical French: an aromatic reduction, then a velouté-based mother sauce and a concentrated meat essence, with the citrus and a pinch of sugar to lift it. It is also a good illustration of how The Epicurean works as a book, since two of its three main components are numbers pointing elsewhere in its own pages, the sauce being assumed to sit inside a kitchen already making stock and allemande daily.