Chicken and Game Sauce

Ranhofer gives an ingredient list and nothing else, which was normal for a professional cook expected to know the ratio. What follows is what the terms mean and how the sauce behaves.

• Sweet oilThis is plain olive oil, "sweet" meaning fresh rather than rancid and not sharpened with anything. Use a mild oil rather than a peppery new-harvest one, which will fight the herbs.
• Proportions are not givenThe recipe is a frame, not a formula. As a cold sauce in the vinaigrette family it wants roughly three parts oil to one of lemon juice, with the gravy added by spoonfuls to taste; anything more precise would be invention on our part.
• Chicken or game gravyIn The Epicurean this means reduced roasting-pan juices or a concentrated brown stock, not a thickened flour gravy. It should be strong enough to taste of the bird on its own.
• It will setIt may set -- if the gravy is well reduced and gelatinous, the sauce can stiffen when chilled. Let it come back to cool room temperature and whisk it together again before serving.
• Fine herbsFines herbes in this period means parsley, chervil, tarragon and chives, chopped very fine and added at the last moment so they stay green.
• Garlic and shallotBoth go in raw and uncooked here, and both will grow louder as the sauce stands. Start with a small clove and one shallot for a cup of sauce, then taste after twenty minutes.
• Yield and servingServing -- this is a dressing spooned over sliced cold meat such as cold roast chicken, guinea fowl or leftover game, not a sauce to be heated; it sits in the book's Cold Sauces section. No yield is given.